Dance With Me
-The Irony in a Full Circle-
You can tell when there's an emergency at the hospital. It's a distinct noise. The honks of horns, the screech of tires. The alarmed shouts of men without direction, calling for someone, anyone to come outside and tell them what to do, where to go. Even the calmest of men became a frenzied mess when they thought someone was going to die on their hands. They always tried to get that evil off of them and onto us as quick as possible.
I wasn't aware of any emergency until men were yelling over each other in the hall. I looked up from my book to the Cook, and he shrugged at me, turning to continue stirring the contents inside a steaming pot. I dog-eared the page I was reading and closed the book, intending to only satisfy my curiosity as I was still on break. I pushed myself to a standing position, and crept over to the door to peer down the hall.
The shouting was between two men, though there were several onlookers in clay-stained undershirts and dirtied slacks. The Doctor was red-faced and spitting as he warned Howard to stay the hell out of his way and let him do his job. Howard retorted with booming authority that no one was keeping him from his brother.
I rushed down the hall as the Doctor began to back away from Howard. "What happened?" I demanded, my heart racing, not giving a damn about those witnessing my blatant concern. "Where's Forrest?"
"He's been wheeled into the operating room." I moved to hurry past him, but the Doctor caught me by the arm and held on tight. "Edie, no. You're gonna stay out here with Howard."
"No I'm not." I was going to help him with whatever it was he needed help with. I always did. Forrest was hurt; I fixed him.
"Yes, you are," the Doctor said, peering down at me over his nose with warning in his eyes. "Howard."
Howard growled because he knew he'd lost this fight on my behalf, and I felt hands grasp my shoulders as the Doctor turned away. "The hell is this?" I asked, dizzy with fear and confusion, and I tried to shrug Howard off, but his clutch only tightened. "What the hell happened to him? You tell me!"
"An accident," the Doctor said. "You take care of her, Howard."
"Wasn't no fuckin' accident," Howard bit. His fingers dug into my shoulders and I winced. "If he dies Doc, I swear to God I'll kill ya myself."
The Doctor waved off the empty threat and disappeared down the hall in a run. I shoved the hands off of me and attempted to escape after him, but Howard caught me by my apron strings. I turned around and hit him, but he ignored the blow. "You go find that stupid motherfucker, and you bring him right to me," he told the two dirty men that had been looking on. They left without a word and Howard watched them go. I hit him again to grab his attention. He groaned and dragged me over to a chair, pushed me down into it and told me to stay.
"Howard, if you don't tell me what happened-"
"Edie shut your fuckin' mouth for a second, all right? Just shut up." Howard paced back and forth in front of me, smearing the dirt and sweat on his face. "I'll tell ya what – goddamn bastard wasn't even s'pposed to be there. Let loose a load o' logs at the mill, rolled right over Forrest. Stupid sonuva bitch didn't even move." He stopped pacing, and sank into the chair beside me, as though his legs suddenly gave underneath him. "Ain't never seen nothin' like that before," he said, and his eyes were clouded and unfocused with the memory. I couldn't breathe. "No fuckin' way he's gettin' outta this one."
"You take that back, Howard," I said. His jaw worked as he chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. "Damn it, you take it back."
"Didn't you just hear me, Edna?" he snapped. "Fuckin' logs. Knocked him down and rolled him flat as a fuckin' pancake! One after the other – couldn't even see him under, shoulda seen…" he trailed off, shoved the hat from his head and grasped his hair in tight handfuls. "Can't survive that."
I tried to picture what Howard had seen. What Forrest had seen. Wasn't anyone looking on? Logs dropping and rolling like thunder, quaking the ground. Wasn't any subtle thing. How fast were they coming? Were there shouts of warning? Why the hell didn't Forrest get out of the way? Just stood there and let himself be taken under the weight and speed of an unexpected demise. One by one, the thick bodies of matured trunks rolled over him, and he was trapped underneath, bones shattering, insides bursting. Would've pressed the life right out of him. Wouldn't have been much more than a bloody lump of something after that kind of assault.
My stomach churned. I wanted to vomit, and I brought my hand to my mouth in a fight to keep my insides settled. It was awful, so awful. My skin was on fire; an unbearable chill pricked at me. I couldn't see a damn thing. I didn't realize I'd stood until Howard pulled me back down onto the chair. The heap of bone and flesh and blood that may have once resembled Forrest burned in my mind. My Forrest. I wanted to ask Howard what he had looked like, if they'd checked to see if he was conscious or breathing at all as they brought him in. But I didn't want to know.
So much blood. There had to have been. His face would have been shattered. Fractures throughout his body would have pierced through his skin. What wasn't bleeding on the outside was surely bleeding on the inside. I glanced over at Howard, but stopped myself short of examining him by shutting my eyes tight. I wouldn't like what I'd be noticing for the first time. It would break me and devastate me and snuff the light out of my world. But I looked anyway.
Deep pools of dark red soaked through Howard's shirt near the brim of his pants. Smears of the stuff colored his legs, as though he'd tried to wipe his brother's blood from his hands, but it still stained between his fingers and along his forearms. It only took a few pounds of pressure to fracture a human bone. My imagination betrayed my composure as it ran astray over the possibilities of the damage a succession of tree logs could inflict on the human body. I bent forward, choking on a gag as I begged my mind to rid me of such images.
I'd kill him myself, the bastard that cut the ties on those logs and let them loose on Forrest. Forrest minded his own unless his attention was required, and I couldn't imagine him ever doing something so bad that someone would wish death upon him in such a cruel way. I covered my face with my hands, digging my fingertips into my skin until it hurt. I shook with fear and with fury, and I wanted to scream. So badly, I wanted to scream. I wanted the world to know the torment of my loss; I wanted them to feel my wrath. I wanted to moan and wail for hours on end, like many women did in cultures around the world, unashamed in their mourning, because I was a woman wronged.
I gasped quietly, digging my nails into my scalp. God didn't want us to be together, did he? It wasn't enough to separate us by time and distance. He needed us in different worlds.
"Jack." I lifted my head and turned to find Howard doing the same. "Where's Jack?"
"Shit…" Howard hissed to himself. He moved forward to the edge of his seat, looked like he was about to stand as he stretched to look down the hall. Then he settled back into the chair and rubbed the corners of his eyes. "Someone'll tell him. I ain't leavin'."
Jack did come, though I don't know how long it took him to get here. Felt like hours, but no one was checking. I wasn't getting back to my shift. I was done working for the day, done working for the rest of my time in Franklin and didn't care what anyone had to say about it. The Doctor would understand, and his opinion was the only one that mattered. Howard and I stayed put in our chairs, filling the space around us with smoke from one cigarette after another.
Jack relayed the news that Whit Boitnott, who I learned was the bastard responsible for this whole mess, had already been arrested. Forrest fired Whit years ago from the sawmill, but was rehired by the manger that ran the mill when Forrest wasn't around. He didn't know any better. Certainly didn't know Whit Boitnott was a man capable of holding a nasty grudge for so long. He was claiming it was all an accident, but his story had already been countered by witnesses who saw him cut the straps binding those logs. He'd been out to kill Forrest.
The sun was setting by the time the Doctor came to find us. We'd sat and watched many of the day nurses leave for the night, gave quiet greetings to the few overnight ladies that fluttered in. The cicadas returned to their hiding holes and the only sounds around for a while was the soft clink of pots and the travelling melody from the Cook's radio as he prepared supper for the patients. Howard remained a silent statue save for the brief moments when he'd lift a burning cigarette to his lips. Jack, who sat to my other side, gnawed his fingernails till they bled, his dark eyes burning with an incessant stream of undecipherable thought.
The Doctor had removed his white coat, and I knew that was for my sake. No telling what it would've looked like after working on Forrest for so long. He stopped in front of the three of us, and though he tried to acknowledge us equally, it was my hands he took as he bent to his knees in front of me. "He's not in good shape," he said to me, then moved his gaze between the two brothers. "But he's alive for now."
I didn't hear 'dead'; didn't hear 'gone', didn't hear 'passed'. I heard 'alive', and that was enough to bring a premature relief and a heavy wave of tears as I squeezed the Doctor's hands tightly. A sob escaped me and I blindly lifted his hands in mine to kiss his knuckles. He was gifted, that doctor. A miracle healer. I bet Forrest would've been dead a long time ago if he hadn't been under the care of Doctor Joseph Andrews.
"There was severe intra-abdominal bleeding, but we went in and stopped it. We cauterized the areas of trauma and flushed him out. He's fractured just about every damn bone in his body, so we set them right, got him wrapped in splints and encased in plaster. He isn't awake. I don't know if he will wake. He's breathing on his own, but I can't promise it'll stay like that."
I clung to the Doctor, kept his hands clutched tightly to me. When he stood he pulled his hands free and stroked my hair, bent to give my forehead a kiss, and told Jack and Howard to take me home.
Forrest didn't die that night, or the night after. He opened his eyes on the third day, but was unresponsive to the Doctor. We were all unconvinced that he was brain dead, so we let him be for a while. I assumed the role of his caretaker because wasn't anyone capable of doing the job I could do. My stomach knotted itself and hadn't unraveled for days. I sat at Forrest's bedside through the day and slept in that chair through the night and I didn't care, didn't care who saw me do it. If he was going to make a noise in the middle of the night, I'd be the first to hear it. If he needed something, I would be the one to decipher what that was. Forrest was mine. As long as I was here, he was mine to take care of.
On the fifth day he accepted food. On the eighth day he smiled at me. I prayed he'd talk by the eleventh day.
Forrest was a sorry sight; a statue of plaster, holes cut for seeing and eating, two stubs of straws up his nose to help him breathe better. He lay straight on his back, eyes to the ceiling, limbs bound to metal rods as though the confines of his cast weren't sufficient enough to keep him still. His lips were chapped, eyes dulled with silent pain. I knew he was miserable, that he was hot and itching, aching, trapped inside the hell of his healing body.
I sat at the edge of his bed, searching his eyes and imagining him lying there as the man I knew. Warm and soft, hard and defined. Flesh. Muscle. Whole. A beautiful human. I imagined the feel of his hands on my skin, in a slow and gentle search as they always did. His voice a blessing of a sound, a low hum that vibrated through me each time he spoke. "Say something," I encouraged him. He blinked, and his eyes soon fluttered to a close. I dipped my fingertips into the pitcher of water at his bedside, and brought them cool and dripping to rub over his cracked lips. "Talk to me, Forrest."
"How's he doing?"
I didn't acknowledge the unwelcomed voice at first, taking the time to rub the back of my hand over my eyes before I turned to the arrived presence. Agent Lehman leaned against the doorsill, careful to keep his distance and his patience as he waited for me. "I don't know," I said honestly. Forrest had opened his eyes again, and was watching me as I traced the outline of his lips.
"There's a trial scheduled for Boitnott next week," Lehman said, shifting his weight a little.
"That was quick."
"It's a small offense."
I turned to him, but bit my tongue. This was all so impersonal to him. He had no idea who these people were – who I was. He only knew that he had a job to do. "I don't think I'll ever understand the law," I said stiffly, returning my gaze to Forrest as I moved my hand along the plaster over his chest.
"Edna." When I turned, Lehman had removed the hat from his head, holding it over his heart as he regarded me. He looked like he was going to say something. He faltered, and inhaled, but eventually relented and dropped his efforts. "I'll be outside."
I smiled down at Forrest. I didn't know if he could see or hear Agent Lehman, but there was trouble in his eyes and I didn't want it to be there.
"You mean everything to me," I told him, keeping my voice quiet. "It's kinda silly, but it's true. You'd think I was born to take care of you. I don't think I'd mind that much at all, if I was."
My face started screwing up, so I covered his eyes real quick before he could see. I patted my cheeks with my free hand and released a slow breath. I wondered if he knew what today was; if he remembered. This day had been hanging over me for the past few months. It was here now. I thought it'd feel worse.
I suppose it was like a slow burn. A pulse of pain. It hurt while it was happening, and it would burn like hell after, but I was in that lull, that shock after the heat where I tried to convince myself that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. When I drew my hand back, his eyes had closed and didn't open. I forced myself to stand and look around the room. A room Forrest would be in for months, healing, waiting. Never mind the process of learning to stand, to walk, grasp, wave, write again. Recovery was a long time coming for Forrest, and I wouldn't be there to guide him through it.
Grays flashed up at me when I took a final glance at him, and I gave him the sweetest smile I could muster. Something that'd put him at ease; something I hoped he'd remember. "Go to sleep now, Forrest," I told him. "Jack's gonna be here later with his Bible, and you know he likes you to listen." He blinked slowly, then blinked again, and his lids folded in a gentle close.
I turned away from him, gathering my sweater off the back of the chair, gathering my dignity, my courage, my strength, leaving my heart and soul behind as I strolled with a high chin and dry eyes to the door. When I stepped out into the hall I grabbed for the luggage resting against the wall outside the door. It was heavy as lead, but I pulled it up anyway, breath unsteady with the weight, and I told myself to walk.
"Men who saw it said he didn't even make an attempt to get out of the way; rather Forrest flipped his hat aside with a cursory movement and turned to face the rolling tons of wood that came for him." - The Wettest County in the World, Matt Bondurant, pg. 278.
Would've had this out sooner, but you know, I've been watching Lawless nonstop since Tuesday. Proud owner of this wonderful movie! So yeah...another sad one, sorry guys. But don't hate me yet! This story will be wrapped up in the next 2-3 chapters, and I have planned for it a swift, justified, and graceful ending.
I'll have a long-winded statement of appreciation to you beautiful readers on the final chapter, but I do want to thank you again, as I have for the past...sixteen (?) chapters. You've helped me mold this story and kept me driven and focused toward an end. I'm beyond words (right now, there will be words in the final chapter) in describing my joy and appreciation for your feedback and support, and your mutual love of Forrest and the Bondurant brothers. I promise, promise that I will do them justice, and I hope I've been able to do that thus far. Thank you for reading, and as always I am so excited to hear what you have to say about this chapter.
