A Life of Bright Ideas (40 page)

Maybe Rupert told the others, or maybe they just heard the commotion. Either way, they came swarming into the backyard, Aunt Verdella out front, shouting, “Oh my Lord, what happened? What happened?”

Tommy picked Boohoo up, naked but for his underwear and socks. He moved him farther from the few stray hornets that still spun above us. I saw two stings on Tommy’s hand, and somewhere on my arm, I felt one, too.

Boohoo was too heavy for Aunt Verdella to hold, so she slid him down her belly to stand, her arms hugging him close. “Oh, honey, my poor baby!” she cried as Boohoo bounced and bawled. She looked horrified when she turned to June. “Oh Lord, look how many times he was stung!”

Uncle Rudy reached us and knelt down on one knee. “You okay, little buddy?”

Everyone was talking at once then, loudly, because Boohoo would not be consoled. His reddened face swished across Aunt Verdella’s belly and he looked up at Uncle Rudy, then at me, his eyes pleading for us to make the pain go away. “It’s okay. It’s okay. They’re gone now, honey,” Aunt Verdella
kept repeating. My hand, shaky with fear, fluttered at my mouth.

I didn’t know who was saying what, but I heard each comment:

“I told him to leave the nest alone, Mom.”

“You’ve got to scrape out the stingers.”

“Raw onions on the sting helps.”

“You kids get in the front of the yard. No one in the back.”

“He’s teetering. That’s not a good sign. Son, are you dizzy?”

“My brother almost died from
one
bee sting.”

Seconds later, Uncle Rudy had to catch Boohoo’s shoulder because he was staggering. Tears were streaming down Boohoo’s face as Rudy wrapped his hand around his skinny neck. “A bee’s in my throat,” he told Uncle Rudy. His voice sounded thick.

“It feels like something’s in your throat, honey?” I think it was Sally Thompson asking.

Aunt Verdella was gently patting Boohoo, and she leaned over to examine the big patches of plumping skin outlined in red that were starting to form on his back.

“Hives. He’s getting hives, and his throat’s closing,” Sally Thompson said. “Get him to the hospital. He’s having a reaction.”

Uncle Rudy scooped Boohoo up. “Rudy, with that detour,” some guy behind him said, “it’s gonna take a good twenty, twenty-five minutes to get him there. Maybe thirty.”

“You aren’t going to have that long,” Sally said, and someone else agreed. I covered my ears, as if their words were curse words
I
was too innocent to hear.

I looked up and saw Winnalee shoving her way between shoulders. “Fly him there, Tommy! You can get him there faster in the Piper, right?” The crowd stilled. Waited.

Freeda was behind Winnalee, Evalee in her arms. “Do it, Tommy. Do it!”

Suddenly, it was like my panic was gripping the limbs of time, slowing it down so it could hardly budge. Tommy’s head moved in slow motion, and his Adam’s apple rose with the pace of a rising sun. Boohoo said something, and I didn’t know if
he
was speaking gibberish, or if my ears were only hearing it that way.

And then, just like that, things sped up. Raced at breakneck speed even.

“Craig, start the Piper!” Tommy shouted.

Craig took off, and Tommy snatched Boohoo from Uncle Rudy and followed him, Boohoo’s limbs and head bouncing with every stride.

“This haze …,” someone said, and then Ada’s voice: “My God. Be careful, Tommy!”

“I gassed it this morning,” Tommy shouted up ahead, apparently because Craig had yelled back to ask. “Thirty gallons.”

We moved like a swarm, Winnalee and I holding hands, Freeda running alongside us, Aunt Verdella moving faster than I ever thought she could, our neighbors close at our backs. “I’m going with Tommy!” Aunt Verdella shouted.

We gathered around the plane, the propellers a humming blur, the engine trembling the wings.
My God! My God!
I screamed inside as Tommy passed Boohoo to Uncle Rudy, then hurried to the pilot’s side. Craig and Melvin Thompson helped Aunt Verdella into the plane.

“Hurry! Come on, hurry!” Tommy shouted as he slammed his door. I’d never touched an airplane before, and I cringed to feel the sides so flimsy that it seemed that if I leaned into it a bit harder, I’d dent it.

“That plane’s never going to get off the ground with her in
it,” a woman’s voice behind me said, and Winnalee turned around and screamed, “Shut the fuck up, Fanny!”

Aunt Verdella drew her arms in tightly. “Oh dear, am I too heavy? I’m a hundred and seventy-six pounds. Is that too much?”

“You’re fine,” Tommy told her as Craig took Boohoo from Uncle Rudy and placed him on Aunt Verdella’s lap. Boohoo was limp and confused, blotched with hives, his lips so swollen they didn’t even look like lips anymore. The stings—so many of them—pocked his skin like miniature sinkholes.

“You’re going for a ride in the Piper, Boohoo,” I called. “Just like you wanted to.” I meant for my voice to sound excited in a good way, but it sounded more like a siren. I glanced at Tommy, hoping to see confidence and calm on his face, like the heroes in TV shows always wore, but he didn’t look like that at all. There were beads of sweat on his upper lip and dappling his temple. He seemed almost confused about what controls he needed to mess with. He gulped a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew it out with force.

Uncle Rudy said something to Aunt Verdella, I couldn’t make out what, then Craig shut the door and gave the plane one quick pat.

“Back up, everybody. Back up!” Craig shouted. Craig and Melvin—even Brody helped—spread their arms and herded the stunned spectators away from the plane.

“What’s going on?” I turned when I heard Dad’s voice. He was standing with Mr. Bishop, who looked every bit as confused as he.

We moved like one body, walking backward, and I could hear someone telling Dad what had happened. “Jesus Christ,” Dad spat.

The Piper started moving, crawling at first, and the crowd hushed, their fingers near their lips.

“He’s got to get it up to sixty miles an hour before it can lift,” someone said as the plane grazed the field. People rocked to their toes, as if doing so would somehow help the plane lift all the faster. Together we sighed, when the Piper’s wheels finally left the grass.

Someone was shouting orders to call the airport and the hospital, and a couple of women were flurrying toward the house. But most stood in huddles, talking among themselves, shaking their heads and rubbing their arms as if they were cold.

Craig came over to where Winnalee and Freeda and I were standing with Uncle Rudy. Dad made his way over to hear what he had to say. “Tommy will get him there in fifteen, sixteen minutes tops, and an ambulance will be waiting,” he told us. “Tommy’s an excellent pilot. He’ll get the job done.”

“But it’s so foggy. He won’t be able to see,” I said. Ada appeared at my side, to ask Craig if it was too hazy for Tommy to fly—as if Craig was an experienced flyer who’d logged a million miles in the air, when in fact, he’d only had a couple of lessons so far, and not many more passenger trips.

“He’ll ride right above the road and keep it low. Tommy knows every high spot around here, so don’t you worry.”

“Let’s get to the hospital,” Uncle Rudy said. His voice was gentle, as always, but there was an intensity in him that stretched his strides as he led us to the road.

“Evalee? Where’s Evalee?” Winnalee asked as we hurried, her head cranking.

“Sally Thompson has her. She’s gonna keep her until we get back.” Winnalee’s steps slowed, and Freeda pushed her to go faster. “It’s okay. She’s got formula and diapers. She’ll be fine.”

“Call me, call me!” Ada shouted after us.

Dad paused when we reached his truck, like maybe he was considering driving himself to town, but Winnalee tugged his
arm as if it was a branch from our magic tree, that could keep her from falling into a scary world where little boys die of bee stings.

Dad lit a cigarette the second he got in Aunt Verdella’s car, and Winnalee, who sat in the back with him—I was tucked in the front between Uncle Rudy and Freeda—reached over and opened his window so the wind would suck the smoke out.

“I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it,” Freeda kept saying, as she pressed her head to the window to watch the Piper moving above the road out ahead of us. I was too scared to look. “One minute everything was fine, and now this. For crissakes, if that ain’t life.”

“Why was he trying to tie up a hornets’ nest anyway? He had to know it was a hive, didn’t he?” Winnalee asked.

I felt sick to my stomach. Freeda squeezed my hand and told us everything would be okay. Then she spotted the road sign, and muttered a tense, “Goddamn detour. Goddamn it.”

The tension in the car hung just as heavy and low as the haze above us, as Uncle Rudy turned on Pike’s Peak Road and was forced to slow down to account for the thick spread of new gravel. I cranked my head, trying to spot the Piper, but distance and fog had swallowed it.

“Shouldn’t we be praying or something?” Winnalee asked. “Isn’t that what people do at times like this?”

“Our Boohoo’s gonna be fine. Just fine,” Uncle Rudy said. Freeda turned to look into the backseat, and mimicked his words.

And then Dad spoke, his words punching me in the back so hard they knocked the wind out of me. “Why in the hell weren’t you watching him, Evy?”

Silence, the kind born out of shock, fell over the car for a second or two.

Uncle Rudy growled Dad’s name, then squinted a warning glare in the rearview mirror.

Winnalee snapped, “Uncle Reece! I don’t believe you just said that!”

Freeda cranked sideways so hard, her right boob butted up against my shoulder. “You miserable son of a bitch, you!” she screamed. “If I could reach back there, I’d pound the living shit right out of you for saying that! How dare you, after all this kid’s been through … after how hard she works to pick up the fucking slack you leave. For crissakes, what’s the matter with you, Reece Peters?”

“Okay, let’s calm down now,” Uncle Rudy said, his voice scraping like a razor over Freeda and Dad’s rough-edged rage. “This won’t help anybody right now.”

Freeda turned back around, and drew me into her. I propped my hand between my face and her shoulder so I wouldn’t soak her shirt. Her heart and breath were working hard, and her heel was tapping the floorboards, jiggling her leg and me.

Winnalee started praying awkwardly under her breath. “God is good, God is great. Let us thank Him if He gets Boohoo to the hospital in time. Amen.”

I prayed after Winnalee did, but silently. And not to God, but to Ma. Asking her to please, please, if Boohoo came to her, selflessly send him back to us.

I was grateful when we finally reached the end of Circle Avenue and got back on the highway. I was holding Boohoo, Aunt Verdella, and Tommy so close in my mind and heart since we’d lost sight of them, that it was easy to believe that once we left the rocky terrain, they, too, were now sailing along more smoothly and swiftly.

When we reached town, Uncle Rudy put his emergency flashers on and honked at every car in front of us until they pulled aside and let us pass. Winnalee scooted forward until I could feel her arm crossways on my back, and her breath on my hair. “Go, Uncle Rudy! Go!”

We had to park in the visitors’ lot and use the main doors that opened onto the second floor, even though two ambulances sitting alongside the hospital confirmed what Uncle Rudy remembered—that the emergency room was on the first level.

“Do you think Boohoo is here yet?” Winnalee asked, and Uncle Rudy told her he was sure he was.

Polished floors that echoed our hurried steps greeted us inside the hospital, as well as an elevator that moved so slowly that Freeda had time to fill it to the ceiling with cusswords before it let us out.

Maybe it was the whooshing of the elevator. Or maybe it was my rising panic, mixed with the hospital smells. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt like I was going to vomit. There was a short little couch with powder blue cushions and wooden arms tucked in an alcove near the elevator, and Freeda led me to it and told me to breathe through my nose. Dad and Uncle Rudy hurried down the hall, their work boots thumping.

“You okay?” Winnalee asked. But I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t do anything but shake.

“Breathe,” Freeda said, as she bent over me. She stood with us for a moment longer, then told Winnalee to stay with me, and hurried to follow the men.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said, as I struggled to find a shred of bravery.

“Don’t be,” Winnalee said. “Boohoo means everything to you. Of course you’re scared. I’m scared, too.” She sat down beside me, our sides touching, and we held hands.

I don’t know how long we sat there. Minutes? Forever?

At one point, Freeda appeared at the end of the hall to say the doctor was with him and they were waiting. Winnalee shouted to her like we weren’t in a hospital, telling her to let us know when the doctor came out.

“I’m so scared,” I told Winnalee, and she squeezed my
hand harder. “I know. Boohoo means the world to you. To all of us.”

We heard footsteps and I was almost afraid to look up, for fear I’d see a man dressed in green, a stethoscope dangling from his neck, coming to tell me that Boohoo was dead. I clamped my eyes shut and braced myself for the tragic, emotional storm I was sure was coming.

“Evy?”

It was Tommy. He squatted down next to the couch and I flinched. “Please … no,” I said.

Tommy took my hands, prying them apart so he could hold one. “He’s okay,” he said gently.

I looked up, my throat so tight it hurt to swallow. “He’s okay? You sure? You sure, Tommy?”

Tommy nodded, his closed lips curving into a reassuring smile.

“Even the doctors aren’t sure how, because I guess with a reaction that severe, you usually only get ten, fifteen minutes tops, and it took us exactly fifteen-point-five minutes to get here, then maybe another minute before the paramedics shot him up with something to counter the allergic reaction.”

“Oh my God,” I said. My whole body sunk into relief and I started crying all the harder.

Winnalee was crying, too, and she wrapped her arms around me and Tommy, drawing us into a circle of relief.