March 1943
Dr. Wall’s clinic was half a mile down the road from Ma Patsy’s office. It was where Rooster Cove Road met Knoxville Highway. The road going into the cove had been paved in 1940 by the Work Projects Administration, better known as the New Deal’s WPA. It was paved for six miles up into the cove, which made it easy now for the folks of Rooster Cove and the neighboring hollows to get in and out. Before that, the old dirt road was full of ruts and holes that turned into mud bogs when it rained. The old logging roads into the hollows weren’t paved, so they still turned into mud bogs when it rained.
Spring flowers were already popping up along the edge of the asphalt. Just looking at them made Solomon feel happy. He had a scientific kind of mind. He had to know why about everything. He had cogitated about the little spring flowers, and he figured that the asphalt trapped water underneath and held heat so the edge of the pavement was the first place to blanket itself in flowers at the end of winter.
Something about the asphalt looks strange today, Solomon thought. Distorted waves rose from it. They reminded him of pictures that he’d seen of heat waves rising from the desert floor. But this was March, and it was Tennessee. Solomon slowed his pace. He stopped beside a power pole and cautiously stepped closer to it. A hum came from inside the pole. He watched in fascination as it became translucent and then transparent. A frenzy of activity buzzed within the outline of what had been the power pole. He looked up at the power lines that ran the length of Rooster Cove Road. They looked like Fourth of July sparklers throwing white-hot sparks. Solomon turned round and round in the road. The asphalt itself glistened with twinkling, swirling red lights. Solomon’s feet stirred the sparkling red lights into a mini-tornado. What’s going on? He thought. Is this the world Ma sees when she goes into her transfiguration chamber?
The half-mile to the clinic didn’t take Solomon long. At sixteen he already had the long, lean musculature of a runner. That fact had won him many trophies. His dark brown, wavy hair was long enough that it fell down on his forehead. When he was working, he’d brush it away, but a stray curl would manage to hang down and tickle him. Some of the kids at school had cut out a picture of the sculpture of David by Michelangelo. They’d called it “Solomon” which caused him some embarrassment because David in that picture was naked. Some kid even made up a little ditty that had taunted Solomon’s teenaged years.
Sepaugh, Say Paw
Mike a land gello
Carved hisself a statue
Of the Sepaugh we all know.
His resemblance to the statue was indeed remarkable. Even Solomon saw the similarity, but he firmly declared that he was much better endowed as far as the family jewels were concerned. That was just guy talk, but the rumor had spread nevertheless.
Solomon’s Mediterranean heritage through his Melungeon ancestors was apparent in his face and hair. The only departure from this heritage was the color of his eyes, which were a vivid blue like the color of the sky when you look straight up on a summer day.
Dimples dotted his cheeks when he smiled, and Solomon smiled all the time. He smiled when he was happy, and he smiled when he was mad. He even smiled when he was worried. It was as if the corners of his mouth didn’t know how to turn down. And behind his smile straight white teeth sparkled. Ma had taught him to make a paste of baking soda and peroxide for brushing.
Today, Solomon was happy that he had an excuse to go to Doc Wall’s. This would be a chance to ask him about a part time job. He liked the old doctor, and he felt like he could be useful around his office. He already could do anything that Ma Patsy could do with her patients. Doc Wall could teach him a whole lot more. And considering the doctor’s failing health, Solomon felt like he could take some stress off the only physician within a thirty-mile radius of Rooster Cove. He just hoped he could convince the doctor of this.
Dr. Hezekiah Wall, whose father was a Bible scholar, had opened his clinic out on the highway between Black Fort and Knoxville in 1908. It was right after he’d graduated from medical school over in Chapel Hill. Since then, the medical office had been his home too. Its gingerbread front porch was a landmark out on the highway.
The doctor had lived there alone for the past fifteen years. Since his wife died from breast cancer, his health had been slowly going down hill. It was hard on him to be available for late night or weekend emergencies. His daughter, Alice Moriah, had been trying to get him to move into her home a few miles west of the clinic, but he’d told her that he wasn’t ready to give in yet. He was seventy-two years young this year, and he figured that he had a few more good years left in him. The old doctor’s nurse had retired last year, and since then, he’d had to do literally everything by himself.
Solomon knew that Doc Wall and Ma Patsy had an arrangement of sorts. They respected each other’s territory. Ma Patsy knew when her patients needed modern medicine, and she didn’t hesitate to send them to Dr. Wall. In return Dr. Wall considered Ma Patsy an extension of his health care system. He supplied her with prescription medicine that required a doctor’s signature, like the quinine.
As Solomon approached the clinic, he saw Dr. Wall struggling to get heavy boxes off the back of a truck. Doc Wall saw him running towards him, and he stopped what he was doing. “Hey, Solomon, Patsy must have sent you for her quinine.”
“Yes,” Solomon said, “can I help you get these boxes into the clinic?”
“Thank you,” Dr. Wall said, “that would be mighty kind of you.”
Solomon already had two of them in his arms, and he was walking towards the back door. “Just show me where you want them, and I’ll bring them all in for you.”
“This really is my lucky day,” Dr. Wall smiled as he held open the back door for Solomon. “Down the hall and to the room on the left,” he pointed for Solomon then followed him. “Put them on the floor over there,” he said.
As soon as the boxes were out of his arms, Solomon was on his way back for more. Dr. Wall knew that Patsy’s quinine would be in one of the smaller boxes, so he followed Solomon out to the truck. Solomon picked up two more large boxes, and Dr. Wall scooped up three small ones. As Solomon put his boxes on the floor, he said, “There’s only one left,” and he was on his way back out to the truck.
Dr. Wall put his three small boxes on a low chest, took out a box cutter, and opened one of them. Patsy’s quinine was on top. Ah hah! he thought, am I psychic, or what? As Solomon brought in the last box, Dr. Wall put the little amber bottle into his coat pocket. He patted Solomon on the shoulder and said, “How about a glass of iced tea, young man?”
“Okay, thanks,” Solomon replied as he followed the aging doctor down the hallway to the kitchen.
Dr. Wall was a few inches over six feet, and his back was straight as an arrow. His white hair he kept short, and he was balding on the very top of his head. His eyes were surprisingly good for his age. He only needed reading glasses, which he’d let slide to the end of his nose. He tilted his head backwards when he needed to read a label. The rest of the time he looked over the top of his little half spectacles. He motioned for Solomon to sit down at the kitchen table. He took the amber bottle out of his pocket and sat it in front of Solomon.
Solomon turned the little bottle round and round in his fingers, trying to decide the best way to start this conversation about his working part time at the clinic. Dr. Wall set a glass of sweet tea in front of Solomon and said, “Solomon, what would you think about coming to work for me here at the clinic?”
Solomon looked startled, “Really?” He smiled and said to the doctor, “I was planning to ask you if you might be able to use me around here.”
“Great minds think alike.” Dr. Wall raised one white eyebrow. “By the way, how old are you, son?”
“Sixteen,” he answered.
“That’s good,” Dr. Wall said. “I don’t want to get in trouble with that new labor law for children. I couldn’t remember whether you were fifteen or sixteen. When can you start?”
“Anytime,” Solomon said, “now if you want.”
“Well, I know you work some for Patsy. Is that going to mess up anything for her?”
“No, I’ve already talked to Ma about it… I mean about asking you for a job. She’s fine on it. I can still help Ma,” he said. “I can be here for your afternoon patients, and I can help Ma at night and on the weekends.”
“That’s a lot on you, son. Do you graduate from high school this year?” Dr. Wall asked.
“No sir, I’m in the tenth grade. I’ve got one more year in school. I go to school in the mornings, but I get out at noon. School’s real easy for me,” he said. “I won’t have a problem. I promise.”
“What kind of grades do you make?” Dr. Wall asked.
“I make all A’s, sir,” Solomon answered.
“That’s good,” Dr. Wall said. “You’ll let me know if this creates a problem for you, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Solomon said, “I promise.”
Someone rang the bell in the waiting room. Dr. Wall put his arm on Solomon’s shoulder and guided him towards the waiting room. The doctor stuck his head through the door. An older gentleman was there. Solomon recognized him. It was Toby something. He lived in a hollow across the highway. Dr. Wall said to the man, “Hello there, Toby. I’ll be with you in a minute. I need to get this young man started on a project in the dispensary.”
Dr. Wall shut the door to the waiting room and said to Solomon. “Unpack the boxes we just brought in. It will be a good way for you to get familiar with the dispensary.”
“Okay,” Solomon said following the doctor into the room.
“Over here I keep all the medicine.” Dr. Wall pointed to rows of glass encased shelves. “They’re all alphabetical.” He opened one of the glass cases to show Solomon. “The ones over there,” he pointed to the glass cases near the window, “These are the ones I use everyday. They’re not in any order. The ones most used are closest to the table.” He gestured towards the table in front of the window. On the table sat a mortar and pestle for grinding tablets into a powder. Beside that were funnels in various sizes. “You’ll get the gist of it. Here I keep the distilled water, tincture of iodine, alcohol, glycerin,” the doctor said touching his assorted bottles. Some were in clear glass bottles. Others were in amber, cobalt blue, or dark green glass bottles. Some were pint-sized and some were ounce-sized bottles, and lots were in between. A few were gallon-sized and sat on the floor beneath the table.
“This is where I compound the elixirs and capsules and whatever else I need,” he said as he pulled out a drawer beneath the table, “and here’s the rest of it.” The drawer contained empty capsule shells and little bottles with cork stoppers that would be filled with medicine that the doctor could send home with his patients.
Dr. Wall walked to the other side of the room to a tall cabinet with forty narrow, shallow drawers. “Over here is where I keep equipment for injections, sutures, gauze, cotton balls, and so forth.” He pulled out a drawer with assorted stainless steel needles. “Different situations call for different sized needles. You’ll learn all this as we go,” Dr. Wall said.
Beside the large cabinet was a small table with a stainless steel box that had a round door like a porthole. “What’s this?” Solomon asked touching the top of it.
“That’s an autoclave,” Dr. Wall said. “I use it to sterilize my instruments. I’ll show you how to use it later. How does Patsy sterilize equipment?”
“In the oven,” Solomon replied.
Dr. Wall said, “This works basically the same way.” The doctor turned to leave, “I need to find out what Toby wants. You start unpacking and put things where you think they belong. You’ll find that I already have at least one of all the things that are in the boxes. So put the new one behind the old one on the shelf.
“Alright,” Solomon said feeling a combination of excitement and awe as he looked around the room. This was so much more than he’d expected for today. There was a telephone on the compounding table so he called Ma to tell her his good news. “Ma, I’m still at Doc Wall’s. He’s put me to work already.”
“That’s great, Solomon!” Ma Patsy could hear the excitement in Solomon’s voice. He had a squeaky sound when he was excited about something.
“I just wanted to tell you not to wait supper for me,” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll get home with this being my first day and all. Dr. Wall’s got so many things to tell me.”
“That’s fine, son. I’ll see ye when I see ye,” Ma giggled.
One wall of the dispensary had Dr. Wall’s medical textbooks and journals. I could spend the next ten years just reading, Solomon thought as he thumbed through some of the books. It was hard to put them down. Reading and looking at the graphic pictures of body parts made him want to look through another and another and another. I don’t want Dr. Wall to think I’m malingering. Solomon grabbed the box cutter and opened another box.
Except for the medicine, which was easy to put away because it was alphabetical, Solomon was taking much longer than he would have liked. Finding the right place for everything was tedious. Dr. Wall came back into the dispensary. “I forgot to tell you to mark things off the packing list as you unpack the boxes.”
“I was doing that. I figured you’d want to know that everything on the list was in the box,” Solomon said.
“Good, and as for the books on those shelves,” Dr. Wall pointed to the wall of books, “you’re welcome to spend all the time you want reading. I figure the more you know about medicine, the more help you’ll be.”
Solomon was in heaven. He explored the room, the equipment, and the medications. If he found something that he wasn’t familiar with, he’d look it up in the medical texts. He looked up all the drugs in alphabetical order. He started memorizing the drugs and each drug’s indications and contraindications. He wanted to be sure that he understood why a patient would need a specific drug, and he wanted to be even clearer on why they shouldn’t take the drug. He memorized side effects and dosages.
After several hours, Dr. Wall came back to the dispensary. The old doctor stood in the doorway for a few seconds. He looked pleased. He said, “Solomon, you’ve outdone yourself. This room hasn’t been this organized since my nurse retired last year. Thank you for your industriousness.”
“You’re welcome, Dr. Wall.” Solomon blushed.
Dr. Wall walked around the room tenderly touching a cabinet here, a bookshelf there. Memories of his lifetime of caring for patients flooded his mind. Solomon watched him carefully. When a person experienced high levels of emotional energy, like Dr. Wall was feeling now, Solomon could feel what they felt. He was empathic; Ma had told him. The feeling that he was getting from Dr. Wall right now was one of joy and profound satisfaction. The doctor took Solomon’s hand. His voice trembled as he said, “Your enthusiasm is contagious, son. Thank you for coming to work for me.”
“Thank you for hiring me,” Solomon said. His smile was so wide that it hurt. His heart felt so big inside his chest that he thought it might burst open with happiness.
“Can you be back here at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon?” Dr. Wall asked.
“Oh gosh, I can’t wait to get back to this room,” Solomon beamed at him. On the way home his feet barely touched the ground.
This turned out to be the perfect arrangement. Dr. Wall taught Solomon how to take a good medical history, and then he’d let Solomon figure out what kinds of tests or treatments the patient needed. Solomon dog-eared the Grey’s Anatomy. He’d put a piece of paper over the illustrations, and then he’d trace them. Later he’d sit down and label all the parts without looking at the book. “He’s a smart boy, that Solomon,” Dr. Wall would say.
Solomon sterilized the equipment in the autoclave. He kept inventory of all the supplies, and he ordered more when anything was needed. Doc Wall laughed and told people that his job was to sit in a rocker on the front porch of his clinic and to answer Solomon’s questions. Both mentor and mentee were happier than two hogs in a mud puddle on a summer’s day.
Copyright © 2008 by Robbin Renee Bridges
Coping with Grief through Afterlife Communication
http://www.spirit-sanctuary.org
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Chapter 4 - Dementia and Demons
March 1947
Solomon knew he’d need a running start if he was going to get up enough speed to fly off the cliff and soar above Lake Blarney. He backed up, sprinted along the pathway, and then jumped over the precipice. Fleecy white clouds billowed in the purple sky. He spread his arms and sailed in circles over the lake until he got close enough to splash down in the blue-green waters. As he floated on the water, a beautiful Indian maiden in a canoe asked him, “Do you have the Sign?”
Solomon answered, “Not yet, but I will.”
The alarm clock jolted him out of his dream. He shut it off and lay there for a moment trying to shake off his disorientation. Good grief! That was a weird dream, he thought.
He shaved and went downstairs to have breakfast with Ma.
“Morning, son,” she said spooning oatmeal into two bowls.
“How many patients are scheduled this morning?” he asked pouring a glass of milk.
“There’s three. They’re all simple prenatals...nothing complicated,” she said.
He nodded. “I had the weirdest dream last night. Have you ever heard of the Sign?”
“No, I can’t say that I have, son. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed, “some Indian maiden asked me if I had it.”
“Aaah law, son,” Ma giggled, “maybe I shouldn’t put so much spice in my spaghetti.”
Dr. Wall fidgeted with the salt shaker on the kitchen table. Solomon had been working for him four years now. It was noon, and he’d be walking in the back door any minute. Patients were filling up the waiting room. Almost all of Dr. Wall’s patients came in the afternoon now…to see Solomon. If Dr. Wall told his patients that Solomon was busy, they told him they’d wait. Dr. Wall had no idea how he could remedy this dilemma. If he got rid of Solomon, patients would just go to Patsy’s to see him anyway.
Solomon’s twenty-year-old enthusiasm still had an invigorating effect on the seventy-six-year-old doctor. He just hadn’t been prepared for how quickly his new employee learned. Nor had he expected his patients to accept Solomon so readily. Granted, the young man was handsome, sensitive, intelligent, skilled, and compassionate...all those things ad nauseum.
The fact that the old doctor had more energy than he’d felt in thirty years had not connected in his mind with the possibility that Solomon was the source of that energy. He just knew that he felt better than he’d felt in years, and he wondered why he’d ever asked the whippersnapper to come and work for him.
Then being the astute observer that he was, Dr. Wall observed that he felt jealous of his young apprentice’s youth. Yes, that was what he felt… jealous. But not just jealous of Solomon’s youth, the doctor was jealous of Solomon’s skill with patients too. While Dr. Wall was still gathering a history on a patient, Solomon would have the patient’s problem diagnosed…just by looking at him or her. Solomon could look with his hands. Patients reported that his hands felt warm right before they got better.
When Solomon came in the back door, the doctor was standing at the kitchen sink with his back to him. “How are things going today, Dr. Wall?” Solomon asked.
Dr. Wall ignored him.
Solomon went to the dispensary, put on his white coat, and stuffed his stethoscope into his pocket. He went back to the kitchen where Dr. Wall puttered over the sink. Solomon asked, “What would you like me to do today?”
Dr. Wall turned around and glared at Solomon. “There are seven patients in the waiting room, and they’re ALL waiting for you!” The doctor’s face was turning red. “They’ve forgotten that I’m the doctor, and you’re a twenty-year-old kid with no degree to your name! They’ve forgotten that I run this clinic!”
“I haven’t forgotten, Dr. Wall,” Solomon said calmly. “I haven’t forgotten that you are my mentor. I haven’t forgotten that I owe it all to you.” Solomon knew that was a slight stretch of the truth. If anyone, he owed it all to Ma. But making Dr. Wall feel better was the issue at hand.
“Just look at you!” Dr. Wall sputtered. “It’s only noon, and you’ve got a five o’clock shadow already. Why don’t you clean yourself up before you come to work?”
"I'm sorry,” Solomon responded, “I’ll go shave.”
Solomon headed off to the bathroom beside the dispensary. He kept a razor in there, and everyday he shaved when he came in to work, whether he needed it or not. Dr. Wall’s daily repetition of this scene indicated that his mentor was sinking deeper into senile dementia. A few weeks ago, Dr. Wall had come into the kitchen in his bare feet. They were blue with the tiny purple veins of peripheral vascular disease. Solomon knew that if his cardiovascular system was compromised in his feet, it was also compromised in his brain.
Solomon shaved, and then he went back to the kitchen. “Is that better, Dr. Wall?”
Dr. Wall grunted and poured a cup of coffee for himself. Solomon shut the icebox door that Dr. Wall had left open. He didn’t point these things out to the doctor. He just went behind him and put things in order. Solomon knew that his old friend couldn’t help forgetting things. The only time it became a problem for Solomon was with patient care. He had to be more aggressive when Dr. Wall forgot something or tried to do a procedure the wrong way. The patients were well aware of this. That’s why they waited for Solomon to get to the clinic. Solomon tried to be tactful with Dr. Wall concerning patient care. He didn’t want to hurt the aging doctor’s feelings. He knew that even though his memory was failing, his feelings were more sensitive than ever.
“Dr. Wall, is Alice Moriah coming over on Sunday?” Solomon wanted to talk to the doctor’s daughter about her father’s health.
“Well, I suppose she is,” Dr. Wall snapped, “doesn’t she come over here everyday?”
Solomon knew it had been almost two decades since Alice Moriah visited her father everyday. That was when her mother was dying of cancer. Now that Solomon worked at the clinic, she came on the weekends when the doctor was alone. I’ll call her in the morning, Solomon thought.
Screams from the waiting room jolted Solomon and Dr. Wall. “Solomon! Solomon!” They heard shouts and what sounded like chairs scattering. A female voice punctuated the melee, “Oh God, help!”
Solomon ran into the waiting room to find three men man-handling a teenaged boy, who was in the throes of the clonic-tonic phase of a grand mal seizure. “Put him on the floor,” Solomon shouted. The men laid the boy down leaving a trail of urine as the boy’s bladder released its contents. Solomon knelt down and rolled him over to one side. He held his head while it jerked uncontrollably. His eyes rolled back and bloody sputum frothed around his mouth where he’d chewed his tongue and cheeks.
“I need a bite stick and phenobarbital,” Solomon said to the doctor. Dr. Wall staggered backwards, and then he left the room. Solomon wasn’t sure that the old doctor would return with what he needed. He said, “Melanie, go with him…a bite stick and phenobarbital.”
A man offered Solomon a spoon. “Here’s a spoon to keep Tater from swallerin’ his tongue. I’m his daddy.”
Solomon said, “He can’t swallow his tongue. It’s attached to his mouth. When Tater has a seizure, roll him on his side. That clears his airway. Just keep him from hurting himself. Put something soft in his mouth to keep him from biting, but don’t put anything in there that would break his teeth.”
Tater’s daddy looked surprised.
Dr. Wall and Melanie appeared at Solomon’s side with the bite stick, a hypodermic syringe loaded with phenobarbital, and a towel. He handed Solomon the bite stick and the towel.
Solomon wiped the boy’s face and tossed the towel into the pool of urine. He didn’t want anyone to slip in it. Then he forced the bite stick between Tater’s back teeth so he couldn’t bite.
Dr. Wall gave Tater the shot. He was still pretty good with skills he’d done all his life. He still knew what common conditions needed which medications and treatments. But if you asked him what he had for lunch, he couldn’t tell you.
Solomon sat down on the floor beside the boy carefully avoiding the puddle of pee. The seizures had slowed. Solomon put the boy’s head on his knee and stroked his forehead. “You’re okay, Tater.”
Tater moaned and looked around the room. He looked bewildered.
Solomon asked Tater’s father, “Do you give Tater the capsules Dr. Wall gave him?”
“Yeah, but we missed a few. My brother says hit’s the devil makes people have fits like this.”
“It’s the devil?” Solomon raised his eyebrows. He didn’t want to get into that right now.
“Mortimer Demon’s come back to the holler,” Tater’s daddy said, “we’s under attack.”
Over supper Solomon said to Ma, “Today at the clinic somebody said the Mortimer Demon is back. Do you know what they’re talking about?”
“Mortimer Demon?” Ma chuckled, “Land a mercy, that was fifty years ago. I was just a girl. Everybody in Rooster Cove was scared to death of it. People wouldn’t go out after dark. They said it carried off chickens and dogs and cats. And some folks said it killed a baby.”
Solomon asked, “Did they ever find out what it was?”
“Not that I know of,” Ma said. “Some folks said they seen it. It was supposed to be big and hairy and stank like rotten meat. They said it could jump from the ground up on to the roof of a house.”
“Are any of the folks that saw it still around the cove?” Solomon asked.
“None in their right mind,” Ma chuckled. “Alfred Hicks over in Mortimer Holler says his grandpa died when he seen it.”
“If he died when he saw it,” Solomon said, “then somebody had to be there and live to tell the story.”
Ma grinned, “Yep, you’d think that. You’ll have to go ask Alfred what he knows about it.”
Copyright © 2008 by Robbin Renee Bridges
Coping with Grief through Afterlife Communication
http://www.spirit-sanctuary.org
Solomon knew he’d need a running start if he was going to get up enough speed to fly off the cliff and soar above Lake Blarney. He backed up, sprinted along the pathway, and then jumped over the precipice. Fleecy white clouds billowed in the purple sky. He spread his arms and sailed in circles over the lake until he got close enough to splash down in the blue-green waters. As he floated on the water, a beautiful Indian maiden in a canoe asked him, “Do you have the Sign?”
Solomon answered, “Not yet, but I will.”
The alarm clock jolted him out of his dream. He shut it off and lay there for a moment trying to shake off his disorientation. Good grief! That was a weird dream, he thought.
He shaved and went downstairs to have breakfast with Ma.
“Morning, son,” she said spooning oatmeal into two bowls.
“How many patients are scheduled this morning?” he asked pouring a glass of milk.
“There’s three. They’re all simple prenatals...nothing complicated,” she said.
He nodded. “I had the weirdest dream last night. Have you ever heard of the Sign?”
“No, I can’t say that I have, son. What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he laughed, “some Indian maiden asked me if I had it.”
“Aaah law, son,” Ma giggled, “maybe I shouldn’t put so much spice in my spaghetti.”
Dr. Wall fidgeted with the salt shaker on the kitchen table. Solomon had been working for him four years now. It was noon, and he’d be walking in the back door any minute. Patients were filling up the waiting room. Almost all of Dr. Wall’s patients came in the afternoon now…to see Solomon. If Dr. Wall told his patients that Solomon was busy, they told him they’d wait. Dr. Wall had no idea how he could remedy this dilemma. If he got rid of Solomon, patients would just go to Patsy’s to see him anyway.
Solomon’s twenty-year-old enthusiasm still had an invigorating effect on the seventy-six-year-old doctor. He just hadn’t been prepared for how quickly his new employee learned. Nor had he expected his patients to accept Solomon so readily. Granted, the young man was handsome, sensitive, intelligent, skilled, and compassionate...all those things ad nauseum.
The fact that the old doctor had more energy than he’d felt in thirty years had not connected in his mind with the possibility that Solomon was the source of that energy. He just knew that he felt better than he’d felt in years, and he wondered why he’d ever asked the whippersnapper to come and work for him.
Then being the astute observer that he was, Dr. Wall observed that he felt jealous of his young apprentice’s youth. Yes, that was what he felt… jealous. But not just jealous of Solomon’s youth, the doctor was jealous of Solomon’s skill with patients too. While Dr. Wall was still gathering a history on a patient, Solomon would have the patient’s problem diagnosed…just by looking at him or her. Solomon could look with his hands. Patients reported that his hands felt warm right before they got better.
When Solomon came in the back door, the doctor was standing at the kitchen sink with his back to him. “How are things going today, Dr. Wall?” Solomon asked.
Dr. Wall ignored him.
Solomon went to the dispensary, put on his white coat, and stuffed his stethoscope into his pocket. He went back to the kitchen where Dr. Wall puttered over the sink. Solomon asked, “What would you like me to do today?”
Dr. Wall turned around and glared at Solomon. “There are seven patients in the waiting room, and they’re ALL waiting for you!” The doctor’s face was turning red. “They’ve forgotten that I’m the doctor, and you’re a twenty-year-old kid with no degree to your name! They’ve forgotten that I run this clinic!”
“I haven’t forgotten, Dr. Wall,” Solomon said calmly. “I haven’t forgotten that you are my mentor. I haven’t forgotten that I owe it all to you.” Solomon knew that was a slight stretch of the truth. If anyone, he owed it all to Ma. But making Dr. Wall feel better was the issue at hand.
“Just look at you!” Dr. Wall sputtered. “It’s only noon, and you’ve got a five o’clock shadow already. Why don’t you clean yourself up before you come to work?”
"I'm sorry,” Solomon responded, “I’ll go shave.”
Solomon headed off to the bathroom beside the dispensary. He kept a razor in there, and everyday he shaved when he came in to work, whether he needed it or not. Dr. Wall’s daily repetition of this scene indicated that his mentor was sinking deeper into senile dementia. A few weeks ago, Dr. Wall had come into the kitchen in his bare feet. They were blue with the tiny purple veins of peripheral vascular disease. Solomon knew that if his cardiovascular system was compromised in his feet, it was also compromised in his brain.
Solomon shaved, and then he went back to the kitchen. “Is that better, Dr. Wall?”
Dr. Wall grunted and poured a cup of coffee for himself. Solomon shut the icebox door that Dr. Wall had left open. He didn’t point these things out to the doctor. He just went behind him and put things in order. Solomon knew that his old friend couldn’t help forgetting things. The only time it became a problem for Solomon was with patient care. He had to be more aggressive when Dr. Wall forgot something or tried to do a procedure the wrong way. The patients were well aware of this. That’s why they waited for Solomon to get to the clinic. Solomon tried to be tactful with Dr. Wall concerning patient care. He didn’t want to hurt the aging doctor’s feelings. He knew that even though his memory was failing, his feelings were more sensitive than ever.
“Dr. Wall, is Alice Moriah coming over on Sunday?” Solomon wanted to talk to the doctor’s daughter about her father’s health.
“Well, I suppose she is,” Dr. Wall snapped, “doesn’t she come over here everyday?”
Solomon knew it had been almost two decades since Alice Moriah visited her father everyday. That was when her mother was dying of cancer. Now that Solomon worked at the clinic, she came on the weekends when the doctor was alone. I’ll call her in the morning, Solomon thought.
Screams from the waiting room jolted Solomon and Dr. Wall. “Solomon! Solomon!” They heard shouts and what sounded like chairs scattering. A female voice punctuated the melee, “Oh God, help!”
Solomon ran into the waiting room to find three men man-handling a teenaged boy, who was in the throes of the clonic-tonic phase of a grand mal seizure. “Put him on the floor,” Solomon shouted. The men laid the boy down leaving a trail of urine as the boy’s bladder released its contents. Solomon knelt down and rolled him over to one side. He held his head while it jerked uncontrollably. His eyes rolled back and bloody sputum frothed around his mouth where he’d chewed his tongue and cheeks.
“I need a bite stick and phenobarbital,” Solomon said to the doctor. Dr. Wall staggered backwards, and then he left the room. Solomon wasn’t sure that the old doctor would return with what he needed. He said, “Melanie, go with him…a bite stick and phenobarbital.”
A man offered Solomon a spoon. “Here’s a spoon to keep Tater from swallerin’ his tongue. I’m his daddy.”
Solomon said, “He can’t swallow his tongue. It’s attached to his mouth. When Tater has a seizure, roll him on his side. That clears his airway. Just keep him from hurting himself. Put something soft in his mouth to keep him from biting, but don’t put anything in there that would break his teeth.”
Tater’s daddy looked surprised.
Dr. Wall and Melanie appeared at Solomon’s side with the bite stick, a hypodermic syringe loaded with phenobarbital, and a towel. He handed Solomon the bite stick and the towel.
Solomon wiped the boy’s face and tossed the towel into the pool of urine. He didn’t want anyone to slip in it. Then he forced the bite stick between Tater’s back teeth so he couldn’t bite.
Dr. Wall gave Tater the shot. He was still pretty good with skills he’d done all his life. He still knew what common conditions needed which medications and treatments. But if you asked him what he had for lunch, he couldn’t tell you.
Solomon sat down on the floor beside the boy carefully avoiding the puddle of pee. The seizures had slowed. Solomon put the boy’s head on his knee and stroked his forehead. “You’re okay, Tater.”
Tater moaned and looked around the room. He looked bewildered.
Solomon asked Tater’s father, “Do you give Tater the capsules Dr. Wall gave him?”
“Yeah, but we missed a few. My brother says hit’s the devil makes people have fits like this.”
“It’s the devil?” Solomon raised his eyebrows. He didn’t want to get into that right now.
“Mortimer Demon’s come back to the holler,” Tater’s daddy said, “we’s under attack.”
Over supper Solomon said to Ma, “Today at the clinic somebody said the Mortimer Demon is back. Do you know what they’re talking about?”
“Mortimer Demon?” Ma chuckled, “Land a mercy, that was fifty years ago. I was just a girl. Everybody in Rooster Cove was scared to death of it. People wouldn’t go out after dark. They said it carried off chickens and dogs and cats. And some folks said it killed a baby.”
Solomon asked, “Did they ever find out what it was?”
“Not that I know of,” Ma said. “Some folks said they seen it. It was supposed to be big and hairy and stank like rotten meat. They said it could jump from the ground up on to the roof of a house.”
“Are any of the folks that saw it still around the cove?” Solomon asked.
“None in their right mind,” Ma chuckled. “Alfred Hicks over in Mortimer Holler says his grandpa died when he seen it.”
“If he died when he saw it,” Solomon said, “then somebody had to be there and live to tell the story.”
Ma grinned, “Yep, you’d think that. You’ll have to go ask Alfred what he knows about it.”
Copyright © 2008 by Robbin Renee Bridges
Coping with Grief through Afterlife Communication
http://www.spirit-sanctuary.org
Chapter 5 - Amour and a Miracle
December 1947
The week before Christmas, Alice Hope arrived home from the University in Ohio where she was a freshman. She had gone there to get away from the smothering influence of her mother, Alice Moriah. She wasn’t too excited about the prospect of being away from her friends at school, but that’s the way these holidays went. You just had to get through them. The only person in the area that she was remotely interested in spending time with was Solomon, the guy that worked at her grandfather’s clinic. She thought he was handsome enough to be a movie star, but he was too shy to suit her. She’d flirted with him for years, but he’d ignored her like he thought she was a child. When she asked him why, he’d told her that he didn’t think it would be appropriate for him to date his employer’s granddaughter. “You’re a fuddy duddy just like Grandfather,” Alice Hope had said to him.
Alice Moriah came out of the kitchen where she’d been preparing dinner. “Alice Hope, I think you should go caroling with the folks at church tonight,” she said, “and I think you should ask Solomon to go with you.” Alice Hope’s mother wasn’t trying to initiate anything between her daughter and Solomon. She was just thinking about her daughter's being out after dark in Black Fort. She knew that Solomon would protect her.
Alice Hope thought about it for a minute. “That might be fun,” she said. She picked up the phone and called the clinic. Actually she was thinking that it might be fun to mess Solomon. I wonder what it would take to get his attention, she grinned mischievously.
Solomon answered, “Dr. Wall’s office.”
“Hi Solomon, this is Alice Hope,” she said playing with the phone cord.
“Heeeyyy! Welcome home, Alice.”
“Thanks Solomon.” She took a deep breath. “I have a proposition for you. Mother wants me to go caroling tonight, and she wants you to go with me. I suppose to protect her precious daughter.”
Solomon laughed, “Well, you are precious, Alice Hope.”
“I’m not a child,” she said.
“Okay, what’s your proposition?” he asked. He sounded like a big brother, which was the way he felt about her.
She lowered her voice. “I’ll agree to go, if you’ll agree not to tell anybody that I smoke.”
Solomon laughed heartily. “Do you really think they don’t know? There’s nothing more pungent than the smell of tobacco smoke to a non-smoker.”
“Your attitude pisses me off.” She slammed the phone down.
Solomon smiled and hung up the phone. I’ll give her five minutes before she calls back, he thought.
It didn’t take that long. “Alice Hope, I’d be happy to accompany you to the caroling tonight,” he said.
She was at the clinic as soon as the last patient left. She sat down at the kitchen table with her grandfather. Solomon stuck his head in the door and said, “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”
Dr. Wall listened to Alice Hope’s stories about college. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and she knew it.
When Solomon came back into the kitchen, Dr. Wall handed him the keys to the Cadillac and a ten-dollar bill saying, “You young folks have supper on me, and Solomon, you have her back here by ten o’clock.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” he said.
Alice Hope looked Solomon over. He had on chocolate brown wool pants with a pale blue oxford shirt and brown wingtips. He looks good, she thought, but that pea coat’s got to go. “Grandfather,” she crooned, “could Solomon wear your cashmere coat?”
“Alice!” Solomon said.
“Anything you want, precious,” Dr. Wall replied.
“Alice pulled the caramel colored cashmere coat out of the hall closet. She held it over one arm and stroked it. “This is so pretty. Come on, Solomon, try it on. You’re as tall as Grandfather.”
Solomon did what she asked.
She smiled real big. “Now you look like someone, who could take me out to dinner.” She twirled around the kitchen sashaying her hips, “How do you think I look?”
Sexually active, Solomon thought to himself. Her pink cashmere sweater stretched tightly across her ample eighteen-year-old breasts. Her rouged cheeks with eyelashes fluttering under theatrical make-up and a pouty pink mouth suggested her availability. “You look beautiful, Alice,” he said instead. “Your pink sweater brings out the pink in your cheeks and the strawberry blonde of your hair.”
Dr. Wall put one hand over his eyes. Peeking through two fingers he said, “You’re scaring your old granddaddy. When did you become a woman?”
Alice Hope beamed.
When they were out of sight of the clinic, Alice slid to the middle of the Cadillac’s front seat and put her hand on Solomon’s leg. “Do you think I look like a woman?” She watched his face as she lightly traced figure eights on the inside of his thigh.
“As a matter of fact, you do, Alice.” He tried not to show the effect her fingertips were having on him. He felt her little finger stretching higher up his thigh getting dangerously close to his manhood. His breathe came deeper and faster.
Alice watched his nostrils flare and his mouth grow slack. “Do I have your attention now?” she purred.
“You definitely have my attention,” he said as his erection pushed against his zipper.
“Mmmm good,” she pressed the back of her hand against it. “Oooh yes, I do have your attention, don’t I?” She stretched up to his neck and gently sucked.
“Your grandfather will know if you give me a hickey,” he whispered through a raspy throat.
“You’re right,” she said moving her hand from his groin to his biceps. She smiled and put her head on his shoulder. She knew she could have him. That made her happy.
As they drove into Black Fort, he asked, “Where do you want to eat?”
“I feel like a steak,” she said grinning, “and you look like you could use some red meat.”
Solomon pulled the Cadillac into the steak house parking lot. He got out, walked around the car, and opened her door. She pulled her skirt up showing off the garter belt that held up her silk stockings. She smiled when she saw him looking at her legs. He offered his hand, and she pulled herself out of the car.
The steak house was dark inside. A fat candle lit every table. Alice Hope asked for one of the circular booths. Solomon helped with her coat and hung it with his on the hook beside the booth. They sat down and Alice slid all the way around the table until she was inches from him.
“What subjects are you taking at the university?” Solomon asked.
“Regular freshman subjects,” she said turning towards him. She put her leg up on the seat with her knee lying on his thigh—a perfect position for his hand to easily reach her where she wanted him to touch her. He could see the top of her silk stockings.
“Uh, are you doing in a dorm? I...I mean, do you live in a dorm?” he stammered.
Alice Hope grinned. She was enjoying his awkward discomfort. She put her hand on the back of his neck and ran her fingers through his hair. She leaned closer so that her breast was touching his arm. She moved it slowly and deliberately. “How many women have you been with?” she asked in a sultry voice.
“Alice Hope, the people over there are watching you.” He cut his eyes toward a table near them.
“Why do you care?” she asked.
“I care,” he whispered firmly. “I’m not into public displays of...of...sex.”
“Alright, alright,” she said putting both her hands on the table and sitting up straight.
“Alice,” he said, “you’re a beautiful and desirable woman. Do you know what you do to a man?”
She sounded annoyed. “I’ve had sex with lots of guys. Don’t make this a big deal.”
Solomon looked concerned. He touched her chin and turned her face to his. “Do you use protection?”
She smiled impishly. “Yeah, I got a diaphragm. I’m not stupid.” She leaned close to him again and said, “I put it in before I left home. I put my diaphragm in and left my panties at home, and you spoiled my surprise.” She turned her head in a mock pout.
Solomon said, “I’m glad you’re not stupid.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You better not let your mother find your diaphragm.”
“You’re telling me!” She winked and said, “I can’t believe you turned down the best sex you ever had.”
“Let’s just say I postponed it,” he said touching the tip of her nose. “Anticipation makes sex better.”
As they pulled into the church parking lot, people were bundling their coats around them and hurrying into the fellowship hall. The wind had picked up making the twenty-five degree temperature feel like zero. Solomon laughed and said to Alice, “You’re going to freeze your butt off…literally.”
She giggled. She was glad he’d remembered that she wasn’t wearing panties.
Confusion reigned inside the fellowship hall. A five-year-old boy was missing. His frantic parents paced and wrung their hands. Solomon got bits and pieces of the story. The child had been playing with siblings. The older ones had gotten cold and had come into the fellowship hall to warm up. That’s when the mother first missed five-year-old Charlie. It had been an hour ago, and they still hadn’t found the boy. Hope had faded, and gut-wrenching grief had taken over. The wails of the family stood out over the crowd’s judgments, “Why were they not watchin’ that young’un?”
The boy’s uncle burst through the door screaming, “They fount Charlie floatin’ face down on the north side of the pond!” He threw his arms around the boy’s father and sobbed, “He’s dead, Charles. Your boy is dead.”
Solomon was instantly alert to the situation. He remembered resuscitating animals after they’d apparently drowned in cold water, and he had a feeling that the child wasn’t dead. Dr. Wall’s cashmere coat flapped in the wind as Solomon hurried down the hill to the pond where men were pulling the boy out of the icy water. They flopped him up on the beach. The child’s face was blue and ice crystals clung to his hair.
“Don’t move him!” Solomon ordered.
The men didn’t know who Solomon was, but his sound of authority stunned them into compliance. They backed away. Solomon took off Dr. Wall’s coat and laid it over the child. He touched the boy’s cheek with the back of his hand and detected a weak electric current between the hair on his hand and the boy’s icy face. “He’s alive,” he said, “get a plank to carry him on.”
The child’s parents ran towards Solomon and the boy. Solomon put his arms out to slow them down. “Don’t move him!” he shouted as he blocked them. He knew that when the blood in an extremity was not circulating, like when a tourniquet was on it, poisons built up in the stagnant blood. He reasoned that if the boy was moved quickly, the poisons would go to his heart and brain.
The child’s mother looked at Solomon with pleading eyes. “Is he alive?” She gasped as she looked at his blue face. “Oh no, he’s dead,” she cried as she dropped to the ground.
“He’s alive. Trust me.” Solomon said it with such conviction that she believed him.
She carefully put her hand on her son’s forehead and said, “Oh God, he’s so cold.”
“I know,” Solomon said, “we’re going to fix that.”
When the men arrived with the plank, Solomon gently slid the boy onto it. He put Dr. Wall’s coat over the child and stood up with the boy and the board in his arms. Solomon’s foot skidded on the ice. “Steady me, fellas,” he said, “don’t let me fall.” They walked up the hill beside Solomon and his precious cargo.
In the fellowship hall, Solomon laid the board and the boy on a table.
A rotund middle-aged man introduced himself as Pastor Hall. “What can I do?” he asked anxiously.
“I need scissors and warm blankets,” Solomon said
A heavy-set woman stood watching with her hands over her mouth. Solomon said to her, “Ma’am, warm some towels in the oven and bring them to me.” She hurried off.
Another woman handed him scissors.
He cut the boy’s clothes off underneath Dr. Wall’s coat and threw the pieces of cold, wet material on the floor. He looked towards the kitchen and shouted, “I need those warm towels!”
The ice in the boy’s hair had melted, and his skin was pale but no longer blue. Solomon saw that the boy’s chest was beginning to move. The mother tenderly stroked her son’s forehead as Solomon said, “You’re doing good, Mama. Breathe your love on your son.”
Solomon put his fingertip against the child’s carotid artery. He felt a small bump from it. He placed a finger under the boy’s chin and slowly lifted it opening his airway. He showed the boy’s mother how to blow very small puffs of air from her own lungs into her son’s. “Blow slowly so he doesn’t start coughing, and then let the air just flow out of Charlie’s lungs.”
Solomon threw Dr. Wall’s wet and muddy cashmere coat on the floor and replaced it with layers of warm towels and wool blankets. He was unaware of a roomful of people standing around him silently witnessing what they considered a miracle. Whispers spread around the room. “He’s brangin’ Charlie back to life.” “I drug that child outta them icy waters. He was dead as a hammer.” “It’s a miracle.”
The boy’s eye’s fluttered as his face turned pink. His mother’s tears dropped onto his face. She wiped them away with her fingertip. She looked at Solomon and said, “Thank you, and God bless you.”
As the crowd pressed closer, Solomon motioned them to back away with a wave of his hand.
An older gentleman with a doctor’s bag came over to the table in time to see the child open his eyes and recognize his mother. The boy’s weak voice trembled, “Mommy?”
Dr. Jones from Black Fort had been called by one of the church members. The preacher said, “Doc, this is Solomon Sepaugh from Rooster Cove. This child was pulled from the icy waters of the duck pond after being under that water for at least an hour. He was dead, and now he is risen. Like Lazarus, this child is risen.”
Dr. Jones cut his eyes at Solomon. Solomon shrugged and raised his eyebrows. Dr. Jones obviously didn’t know what to make of the situation. Solomon said, “The child was severely hypothermic. His bodily functions were so minimal that he appeared dead. We’ve gently warmed him. I believe he needs to be kept warm and rehydrated with intravenous dextrose and water.”
The doctor seemed grateful for information that he could deal with.
“The child shouldn’t be moved until his core temperature is closer to normal,” Solomon added, “and I’m sure he has some acidosis due to the pooling of his blood.”
Dr. Jones nodded as he took over the boy’s treatment.
Solomon picked up Dr. Wall’s muddy cashmere coat. He saw Alice Hope across the room and waved her to him. She hurried over. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.
She followed him into the kitchen where they could escape out the back door. They managed to get into the Cadillac without anyone seeing them. Solomon started the engine and waited for the motor to warm up.
Alice Hope was staring at him. He looked at her and grinned. He raised his eyebrows and said, “What?”
“That was amazing. You were amazing,” she said.
“I’m happy it worked out for little Charlie,” Solomon said looking in the rear view mirror.
Alice Hope moved closer. She stuck her arm through his and put her head on his shoulder. He drove out of the parking lot before anyone noticed they were gone. Alice didn’t move on the way home. She was so quiet that Solomon wondered if she was asleep. She wasn’t. She was thinking about what Solomon had done.
Solomon drove the Cadillac into the clinic parking lot and looked at his watch…eight-thirty. They were back early. He remembered the doctor’s muddy cashmere coat with dread.
“Trade places,” Alice said, “I’ll drive you home, and I’ll come back and tell Grandfather about tonight. I’ll have his coat cleaned tomorrow.”
She drove the short half-mile to Ma Patsy’s. She pulled into the driveway and put the car in park. “This was quite an evening,” she said.
Solomon felt awkward. Should I kiss her goodnight?
“You never told me how many women you’ve been with,” she said playfully.
Solomon looked at his hands like he was counting, and then he grinned, “None,” he said.
“None?” she gawked. “I guess you get disgusted with all the gross female stuff you see.”
“No, that’s not it. I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t had the time to give to a woman...you know to romance her and all that.”
“I wanted to be with you when we were in high school,” she said, “but you never noticed me.”
“Oh, I noticed you. I just thought your grandfather would kill me if he thought I was interested in you.” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah, I noticed you for sure.”
She put her cheek on his hand and turned and kissed it. She nuzzled it until his finger was in her mouth. Her eyes locked on his as he watched her curl her tongue around the end of his finger. He closed his eyes for a moment savoring the heat rising in his loins. He ran his hand under her hair and caressed her neck. Then he pulled her towards him.
He meant it to be a simple kiss, but he lingered with it, and sensuously moving his mouth on hers, he closed his eyes. The warmth and softness of her lips started a flood of heat cascading from his loins. His tongue slowly explored her lips, which she parted obligingly for him. He touched her breast and felt her softness through the cashmere sweater. She sucked in her breath in response to his caressing her nipple. It grew hard under his fingertips. Solomon wanted to bury himself in her softness. He pulled her out of the driver’s seat and into his arms. He kissed her deeply, probing with his tongue.
Alice hit the gearshift with her knee as she twisted her body towards him. Solomon reached over her and turned off the ignition and the headlights. He ran his hands over her legs relishing the smooth feel of the silk stockings on her legs. He fondled the naked skin above the stockings, first on the outside of her thigh, and then he moved his sensitive fingertips around the top of her stockings to the inside. He followed her garter belt…until he felt her coarse pubic hair. He watched her face while he explored her. His knowledgeable fingers followed her contour until his middle finger sank into her. Her half-closed eyes fluttered. Her jaw relaxed and her tongue was visible between her parted lips. Her head rolled back, and she groaned a guttural sound in the back of her throat.
With his hand on the small of her back, Solomon pulled her forward. She lay back on the car seat. Without her knowing, he checked to make certain that her diaphragm was still in place on her cervix. Then his finger found the swollen roughness of the vaginal wall on the underside of her clitoris. He cupped his hand so that he applied pressure to her clitoris with his palm while his middle finger was planted inside beneath it. He pleasured her inside and outside. She moved her hips with the primal rhythm of sexual excitement as his massage took up the rhythm she was showing him. She rode a crest of pleasure until…her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth pulled taunt. She stiffened the muscles in her legs and feet. Solomon felt her vaginal muscles grasping and releasing around his fingers in their orgasmic dance.
When the contractions slowed, he unzipped his pants and freed himself. He picked her up. She was as relaxed and limp as a rag doll. When she realized what he was doing, she guided him into her. She was hot and swollen inside and wet with slick secretions. She buried him deeply inside, and then she ground herself into him in slow voluptuous circles. Solomon took her face into his hands and kissed her tenderly, and then passionately. Her orgasmic contractions surrounded him…massaged him as the firmness of the roots of her clitoral erection encircled his organ. He was so close to ejaculating that he dared not move lest this paradise end.
Alice put her hands on his shoulders and then around his neck. She whispered to him, “Move my hips the way it feels good to you.” With his hands around her waist, he moved her up and down. She felt his pleasure as his thighs grew hard. He pushed his hips up out of the seat. He exploded inside her again and again until he relaxed and sank back into the seat. They sat coupled together relaxing into bliss.
Solomon was the first to move when he looked at his watch. “Nine-thirty,” he said.
Alice Hope slowly raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him.
He smiled and whispered, “You look like you’ve just had sex.”
She smiled at him and said, “Yes, I sure have.”
“Come in my house and freshen up before you go to the clinic,” Solomon said to her. “Your grandfather will know what we’ve been doing. I can promise you that.”
Solomon opened the car door. They both climbed out on the same side. When Alice stood up, she grimaced, “Oh crap, bring a towel next time.”
Solomon laughed and pulled her to him. He teased, “Can I help you in the bathroom?”
“I think you’ve helped me enough tonight,” she grinned and winked at him.
Alice Hope came out of the bathroom looking perfect again. Solomon walked her back to the Cadillac, kissed her on the cheek, and watched her drive out of sight. He bounded up the front porch steps taking them three at a time. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy…or so satisfied.
Copyright © 2008 by Robbin Renee Bridges
Coping with Grief through Afterlife Communication
http://www.spirit-sanctuary.org/
The week before Christmas, Alice Hope arrived home from the University in Ohio where she was a freshman. She had gone there to get away from the smothering influence of her mother, Alice Moriah. She wasn’t too excited about the prospect of being away from her friends at school, but that’s the way these holidays went. You just had to get through them. The only person in the area that she was remotely interested in spending time with was Solomon, the guy that worked at her grandfather’s clinic. She thought he was handsome enough to be a movie star, but he was too shy to suit her. She’d flirted with him for years, but he’d ignored her like he thought she was a child. When she asked him why, he’d told her that he didn’t think it would be appropriate for him to date his employer’s granddaughter. “You’re a fuddy duddy just like Grandfather,” Alice Hope had said to him.
Alice Moriah came out of the kitchen where she’d been preparing dinner. “Alice Hope, I think you should go caroling with the folks at church tonight,” she said, “and I think you should ask Solomon to go with you.” Alice Hope’s mother wasn’t trying to initiate anything between her daughter and Solomon. She was just thinking about her daughter's being out after dark in Black Fort. She knew that Solomon would protect her.
Alice Hope thought about it for a minute. “That might be fun,” she said. She picked up the phone and called the clinic. Actually she was thinking that it might be fun to mess Solomon. I wonder what it would take to get his attention, she grinned mischievously.
Solomon answered, “Dr. Wall’s office.”
“Hi Solomon, this is Alice Hope,” she said playing with the phone cord.
“Heeeyyy! Welcome home, Alice.”
“Thanks Solomon.” She took a deep breath. “I have a proposition for you. Mother wants me to go caroling tonight, and she wants you to go with me. I suppose to protect her precious daughter.”
Solomon laughed, “Well, you are precious, Alice Hope.”
“I’m not a child,” she said.
“Okay, what’s your proposition?” he asked. He sounded like a big brother, which was the way he felt about her.
She lowered her voice. “I’ll agree to go, if you’ll agree not to tell anybody that I smoke.”
Solomon laughed heartily. “Do you really think they don’t know? There’s nothing more pungent than the smell of tobacco smoke to a non-smoker.”
“Your attitude pisses me off.” She slammed the phone down.
Solomon smiled and hung up the phone. I’ll give her five minutes before she calls back, he thought.
It didn’t take that long. “Alice Hope, I’d be happy to accompany you to the caroling tonight,” he said.
She was at the clinic as soon as the last patient left. She sat down at the kitchen table with her grandfather. Solomon stuck his head in the door and said, “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”
Dr. Wall listened to Alice Hope’s stories about college. She had him wrapped around her little finger, and she knew it.
When Solomon came back into the kitchen, Dr. Wall handed him the keys to the Cadillac and a ten-dollar bill saying, “You young folks have supper on me, and Solomon, you have her back here by ten o’clock.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that,” he said.
Alice Hope looked Solomon over. He had on chocolate brown wool pants with a pale blue oxford shirt and brown wingtips. He looks good, she thought, but that pea coat’s got to go. “Grandfather,” she crooned, “could Solomon wear your cashmere coat?”
“Alice!” Solomon said.
“Anything you want, precious,” Dr. Wall replied.
“Alice pulled the caramel colored cashmere coat out of the hall closet. She held it over one arm and stroked it. “This is so pretty. Come on, Solomon, try it on. You’re as tall as Grandfather.”
Solomon did what she asked.
She smiled real big. “Now you look like someone, who could take me out to dinner.” She twirled around the kitchen sashaying her hips, “How do you think I look?”
Sexually active, Solomon thought to himself. Her pink cashmere sweater stretched tightly across her ample eighteen-year-old breasts. Her rouged cheeks with eyelashes fluttering under theatrical make-up and a pouty pink mouth suggested her availability. “You look beautiful, Alice,” he said instead. “Your pink sweater brings out the pink in your cheeks and the strawberry blonde of your hair.”
Dr. Wall put one hand over his eyes. Peeking through two fingers he said, “You’re scaring your old granddaddy. When did you become a woman?”
Alice Hope beamed.
When they were out of sight of the clinic, Alice slid to the middle of the Cadillac’s front seat and put her hand on Solomon’s leg. “Do you think I look like a woman?” She watched his face as she lightly traced figure eights on the inside of his thigh.
“As a matter of fact, you do, Alice.” He tried not to show the effect her fingertips were having on him. He felt her little finger stretching higher up his thigh getting dangerously close to his manhood. His breathe came deeper and faster.
Alice watched his nostrils flare and his mouth grow slack. “Do I have your attention now?” she purred.
“You definitely have my attention,” he said as his erection pushed against his zipper.
“Mmmm good,” she pressed the back of her hand against it. “Oooh yes, I do have your attention, don’t I?” She stretched up to his neck and gently sucked.
“Your grandfather will know if you give me a hickey,” he whispered through a raspy throat.
“You’re right,” she said moving her hand from his groin to his biceps. She smiled and put her head on his shoulder. She knew she could have him. That made her happy.
As they drove into Black Fort, he asked, “Where do you want to eat?”
“I feel like a steak,” she said grinning, “and you look like you could use some red meat.”
Solomon pulled the Cadillac into the steak house parking lot. He got out, walked around the car, and opened her door. She pulled her skirt up showing off the garter belt that held up her silk stockings. She smiled when she saw him looking at her legs. He offered his hand, and she pulled herself out of the car.
The steak house was dark inside. A fat candle lit every table. Alice Hope asked for one of the circular booths. Solomon helped with her coat and hung it with his on the hook beside the booth. They sat down and Alice slid all the way around the table until she was inches from him.
“What subjects are you taking at the university?” Solomon asked.
“Regular freshman subjects,” she said turning towards him. She put her leg up on the seat with her knee lying on his thigh—a perfect position for his hand to easily reach her where she wanted him to touch her. He could see the top of her silk stockings.
“Uh, are you doing in a dorm? I...I mean, do you live in a dorm?” he stammered.
Alice Hope grinned. She was enjoying his awkward discomfort. She put her hand on the back of his neck and ran her fingers through his hair. She leaned closer so that her breast was touching his arm. She moved it slowly and deliberately. “How many women have you been with?” she asked in a sultry voice.
“Alice Hope, the people over there are watching you.” He cut his eyes toward a table near them.
“Why do you care?” she asked.
“I care,” he whispered firmly. “I’m not into public displays of...of...sex.”
“Alright, alright,” she said putting both her hands on the table and sitting up straight.
“Alice,” he said, “you’re a beautiful and desirable woman. Do you know what you do to a man?”
She sounded annoyed. “I’ve had sex with lots of guys. Don’t make this a big deal.”
Solomon looked concerned. He touched her chin and turned her face to his. “Do you use protection?”
She smiled impishly. “Yeah, I got a diaphragm. I’m not stupid.” She leaned close to him again and said, “I put it in before I left home. I put my diaphragm in and left my panties at home, and you spoiled my surprise.” She turned her head in a mock pout.
Solomon said, “I’m glad you’re not stupid.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You better not let your mother find your diaphragm.”
“You’re telling me!” She winked and said, “I can’t believe you turned down the best sex you ever had.”
“Let’s just say I postponed it,” he said touching the tip of her nose. “Anticipation makes sex better.”
As they pulled into the church parking lot, people were bundling their coats around them and hurrying into the fellowship hall. The wind had picked up making the twenty-five degree temperature feel like zero. Solomon laughed and said to Alice, “You’re going to freeze your butt off…literally.”
She giggled. She was glad he’d remembered that she wasn’t wearing panties.
Confusion reigned inside the fellowship hall. A five-year-old boy was missing. His frantic parents paced and wrung their hands. Solomon got bits and pieces of the story. The child had been playing with siblings. The older ones had gotten cold and had come into the fellowship hall to warm up. That’s when the mother first missed five-year-old Charlie. It had been an hour ago, and they still hadn’t found the boy. Hope had faded, and gut-wrenching grief had taken over. The wails of the family stood out over the crowd’s judgments, “Why were they not watchin’ that young’un?”
The boy’s uncle burst through the door screaming, “They fount Charlie floatin’ face down on the north side of the pond!” He threw his arms around the boy’s father and sobbed, “He’s dead, Charles. Your boy is dead.”
Solomon was instantly alert to the situation. He remembered resuscitating animals after they’d apparently drowned in cold water, and he had a feeling that the child wasn’t dead. Dr. Wall’s cashmere coat flapped in the wind as Solomon hurried down the hill to the pond where men were pulling the boy out of the icy water. They flopped him up on the beach. The child’s face was blue and ice crystals clung to his hair.
“Don’t move him!” Solomon ordered.
The men didn’t know who Solomon was, but his sound of authority stunned them into compliance. They backed away. Solomon took off Dr. Wall’s coat and laid it over the child. He touched the boy’s cheek with the back of his hand and detected a weak electric current between the hair on his hand and the boy’s icy face. “He’s alive,” he said, “get a plank to carry him on.”
The child’s parents ran towards Solomon and the boy. Solomon put his arms out to slow them down. “Don’t move him!” he shouted as he blocked them. He knew that when the blood in an extremity was not circulating, like when a tourniquet was on it, poisons built up in the stagnant blood. He reasoned that if the boy was moved quickly, the poisons would go to his heart and brain.
The child’s mother looked at Solomon with pleading eyes. “Is he alive?” She gasped as she looked at his blue face. “Oh no, he’s dead,” she cried as she dropped to the ground.
“He’s alive. Trust me.” Solomon said it with such conviction that she believed him.
She carefully put her hand on her son’s forehead and said, “Oh God, he’s so cold.”
“I know,” Solomon said, “we’re going to fix that.”
When the men arrived with the plank, Solomon gently slid the boy onto it. He put Dr. Wall’s coat over the child and stood up with the boy and the board in his arms. Solomon’s foot skidded on the ice. “Steady me, fellas,” he said, “don’t let me fall.” They walked up the hill beside Solomon and his precious cargo.
In the fellowship hall, Solomon laid the board and the boy on a table.
A rotund middle-aged man introduced himself as Pastor Hall. “What can I do?” he asked anxiously.
“I need scissors and warm blankets,” Solomon said
A heavy-set woman stood watching with her hands over her mouth. Solomon said to her, “Ma’am, warm some towels in the oven and bring them to me.” She hurried off.
Another woman handed him scissors.
He cut the boy’s clothes off underneath Dr. Wall’s coat and threw the pieces of cold, wet material on the floor. He looked towards the kitchen and shouted, “I need those warm towels!”
The ice in the boy’s hair had melted, and his skin was pale but no longer blue. Solomon saw that the boy’s chest was beginning to move. The mother tenderly stroked her son’s forehead as Solomon said, “You’re doing good, Mama. Breathe your love on your son.”
Solomon put his fingertip against the child’s carotid artery. He felt a small bump from it. He placed a finger under the boy’s chin and slowly lifted it opening his airway. He showed the boy’s mother how to blow very small puffs of air from her own lungs into her son’s. “Blow slowly so he doesn’t start coughing, and then let the air just flow out of Charlie’s lungs.”
Solomon threw Dr. Wall’s wet and muddy cashmere coat on the floor and replaced it with layers of warm towels and wool blankets. He was unaware of a roomful of people standing around him silently witnessing what they considered a miracle. Whispers spread around the room. “He’s brangin’ Charlie back to life.” “I drug that child outta them icy waters. He was dead as a hammer.” “It’s a miracle.”
The boy’s eye’s fluttered as his face turned pink. His mother’s tears dropped onto his face. She wiped them away with her fingertip. She looked at Solomon and said, “Thank you, and God bless you.”
As the crowd pressed closer, Solomon motioned them to back away with a wave of his hand.
An older gentleman with a doctor’s bag came over to the table in time to see the child open his eyes and recognize his mother. The boy’s weak voice trembled, “Mommy?”
Dr. Jones from Black Fort had been called by one of the church members. The preacher said, “Doc, this is Solomon Sepaugh from Rooster Cove. This child was pulled from the icy waters of the duck pond after being under that water for at least an hour. He was dead, and now he is risen. Like Lazarus, this child is risen.”
Dr. Jones cut his eyes at Solomon. Solomon shrugged and raised his eyebrows. Dr. Jones obviously didn’t know what to make of the situation. Solomon said, “The child was severely hypothermic. His bodily functions were so minimal that he appeared dead. We’ve gently warmed him. I believe he needs to be kept warm and rehydrated with intravenous dextrose and water.”
The doctor seemed grateful for information that he could deal with.
“The child shouldn’t be moved until his core temperature is closer to normal,” Solomon added, “and I’m sure he has some acidosis due to the pooling of his blood.”
Dr. Jones nodded as he took over the boy’s treatment.
Solomon picked up Dr. Wall’s muddy cashmere coat. He saw Alice Hope across the room and waved her to him. She hurried over. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.
She followed him into the kitchen where they could escape out the back door. They managed to get into the Cadillac without anyone seeing them. Solomon started the engine and waited for the motor to warm up.
Alice Hope was staring at him. He looked at her and grinned. He raised his eyebrows and said, “What?”
“That was amazing. You were amazing,” she said.
“I’m happy it worked out for little Charlie,” Solomon said looking in the rear view mirror.
Alice Hope moved closer. She stuck her arm through his and put her head on his shoulder. He drove out of the parking lot before anyone noticed they were gone. Alice didn’t move on the way home. She was so quiet that Solomon wondered if she was asleep. She wasn’t. She was thinking about what Solomon had done.
Solomon drove the Cadillac into the clinic parking lot and looked at his watch…eight-thirty. They were back early. He remembered the doctor’s muddy cashmere coat with dread.
“Trade places,” Alice said, “I’ll drive you home, and I’ll come back and tell Grandfather about tonight. I’ll have his coat cleaned tomorrow.”
She drove the short half-mile to Ma Patsy’s. She pulled into the driveway and put the car in park. “This was quite an evening,” she said.
Solomon felt awkward. Should I kiss her goodnight?
“You never told me how many women you’ve been with,” she said playfully.
Solomon looked at his hands like he was counting, and then he grinned, “None,” he said.
“None?” she gawked. “I guess you get disgusted with all the gross female stuff you see.”
“No, that’s not it. I’ve just been so busy that I haven’t had the time to give to a woman...you know to romance her and all that.”
“I wanted to be with you when we were in high school,” she said, “but you never noticed me.”
“Oh, I noticed you. I just thought your grandfather would kill me if he thought I was interested in you.” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah, I noticed you for sure.”
She put her cheek on his hand and turned and kissed it. She nuzzled it until his finger was in her mouth. Her eyes locked on his as he watched her curl her tongue around the end of his finger. He closed his eyes for a moment savoring the heat rising in his loins. He ran his hand under her hair and caressed her neck. Then he pulled her towards him.
He meant it to be a simple kiss, but he lingered with it, and sensuously moving his mouth on hers, he closed his eyes. The warmth and softness of her lips started a flood of heat cascading from his loins. His tongue slowly explored her lips, which she parted obligingly for him. He touched her breast and felt her softness through the cashmere sweater. She sucked in her breath in response to his caressing her nipple. It grew hard under his fingertips. Solomon wanted to bury himself in her softness. He pulled her out of the driver’s seat and into his arms. He kissed her deeply, probing with his tongue.
Alice hit the gearshift with her knee as she twisted her body towards him. Solomon reached over her and turned off the ignition and the headlights. He ran his hands over her legs relishing the smooth feel of the silk stockings on her legs. He fondled the naked skin above the stockings, first on the outside of her thigh, and then he moved his sensitive fingertips around the top of her stockings to the inside. He followed her garter belt…until he felt her coarse pubic hair. He watched her face while he explored her. His knowledgeable fingers followed her contour until his middle finger sank into her. Her half-closed eyes fluttered. Her jaw relaxed and her tongue was visible between her parted lips. Her head rolled back, and she groaned a guttural sound in the back of her throat.
With his hand on the small of her back, Solomon pulled her forward. She lay back on the car seat. Without her knowing, he checked to make certain that her diaphragm was still in place on her cervix. Then his finger found the swollen roughness of the vaginal wall on the underside of her clitoris. He cupped his hand so that he applied pressure to her clitoris with his palm while his middle finger was planted inside beneath it. He pleasured her inside and outside. She moved her hips with the primal rhythm of sexual excitement as his massage took up the rhythm she was showing him. She rode a crest of pleasure until…her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth pulled taunt. She stiffened the muscles in her legs and feet. Solomon felt her vaginal muscles grasping and releasing around his fingers in their orgasmic dance.
When the contractions slowed, he unzipped his pants and freed himself. He picked her up. She was as relaxed and limp as a rag doll. When she realized what he was doing, she guided him into her. She was hot and swollen inside and wet with slick secretions. She buried him deeply inside, and then she ground herself into him in slow voluptuous circles. Solomon took her face into his hands and kissed her tenderly, and then passionately. Her orgasmic contractions surrounded him…massaged him as the firmness of the roots of her clitoral erection encircled his organ. He was so close to ejaculating that he dared not move lest this paradise end.
Alice put her hands on his shoulders and then around his neck. She whispered to him, “Move my hips the way it feels good to you.” With his hands around her waist, he moved her up and down. She felt his pleasure as his thighs grew hard. He pushed his hips up out of the seat. He exploded inside her again and again until he relaxed and sank back into the seat. They sat coupled together relaxing into bliss.
Solomon was the first to move when he looked at his watch. “Nine-thirty,” he said.
Alice Hope slowly raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him.
He smiled and whispered, “You look like you’ve just had sex.”
She smiled at him and said, “Yes, I sure have.”
“Come in my house and freshen up before you go to the clinic,” Solomon said to her. “Your grandfather will know what we’ve been doing. I can promise you that.”
Solomon opened the car door. They both climbed out on the same side. When Alice stood up, she grimaced, “Oh crap, bring a towel next time.”
Solomon laughed and pulled her to him. He teased, “Can I help you in the bathroom?”
“I think you’ve helped me enough tonight,” she grinned and winked at him.
Alice Hope came out of the bathroom looking perfect again. Solomon walked her back to the Cadillac, kissed her on the cheek, and watched her drive out of sight. He bounded up the front porch steps taking them three at a time. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy…or so satisfied.
Copyright © 2008 by Robbin Renee Bridges
Coping with Grief through Afterlife Communication
http://www.spirit-sanctuary.org/
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