Spelldown (14 page)

“May I hear the definition, please?” Timothy’s voice squeaks, scratches a hole in the tension. I smell his sweaty fear. I know he’s stalling. I admire him for it.

The Giver of Words pronounces the word again.
“Osh-u-ary:
a vault for the bones of the dead.”

Centuries pass while the unlucky boy squirms, as if nails were being hammered through his thighs. Finally, he says,
“0-s-h-u-a-i-r-y.”

The bell rings. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brinkley, that’s incorrect.”

The King of Mothballs’ head drops into his hands. His mama yelps in the first row. I stare at the purple stains on my fingers from the rabbit’s foot.

“Miss Bridges, will you please spell the word
osh-u-ary?”
the Giver of Words says with a lilting tone in his voice, as if he’s Bert Parks asking questions in the final round of the Miss America pageant.

Blood rushes through my tired arteries. If I cut my wrists, words would leak all over the floor. I force myself to breathe deeply, and then seek my teacher’s eyes. Mrs. Harrison’s wink is full of encouragement.

Hmm. A vault for the bones of the dead—it’s from the Latin word
ossuarius—of bones!
My lips part and the letters
o-s-s-u-a-r-y
flow from my mouth.

The Giver of Words pauses briefly. “That’s correct, Miss Bridges.”

I feel electrified.

The Giver of Words smiles at me. “Miss Bridges, in order to win, you need to spell another word. Will you please spell
Chihuahua?”

I close my eyes and see Itty-Bitty, Gloria Jean and Wendell’s two-pound, seventeen-year-old, ratty little dog, yipping and yapping around my legs. Wendell had gotten her as a puppy, and he loved her to pieces. Gloria Jean was devoted to her too. If Itty-Bitty hadn’t died last week, I wouldn’t have had to look up
Chihuahua
when I made them a sympathy card. It’s one of the craziest spellings I’ve ever seen. Holy moly. It dawns on me:
If Gloria Jean hadn’t married Wendell, I wouldn’t have had to look up this ridiculous word!
I open my eyes and say
“C-h-i-h-u-a-h-u-a.”

“Congratulations, Miss Bridges, you are the new Spelling Champion of South Carolina!” The superintendent shakes my hand.

The audience claps and cheers like they’re in a football stadium. With his hands held high above his head, Mr.
Harrison claps wildly and Mrs. Harrison is hollering one bravo after another, but Mama and Daddy are standing totally still and perfectly straight, their faces fierce with pride. Winning tears race down my cheeks. I stick out my tongue and lick them.

1: of or relating to the river Styx or the lower world

2: extremely dark, gloomy, or forbidding

3: infernal, hellish

I’m standing by the picture window, watching the twins get on the school bus, wondering whether I should go to school today. For the last couple days, Daddy’s been in bed with some kind of flu or something, but Mama can’t get him to go to the doctor’s. Since we got home from the state spelling bee a few weeks ago, it’s been terrible. He hardly eats a thing—he’s living off of coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol.

“Karlene!” Mama calls out. I rush into their bedroom and find her sitting on the side of the bed, dipping a washcloth into a bowl of ice water. Daddy’s wearing his old blue pajamas and the sheet is halfway twirled around him. His breathing sounds wheezier than last night. I sit on one side of the bed and touch his pant leg. It’s soaked with sweat. “Goddamn you!” Daddy says, his eyelids closed but fluttering.

“His fever’s gone up,” Mama says. “We need to take him to the hospital. Call Kelly and tell him to come quick.”

I rush to the phone and call Kelly. Mama asks me to pack a few things, so I round up Daddy’s clean underwear, socks, deodorant, toothpaste, and toothbrush, and put them in an
overnight bag. By the time Kelly comes, Mama has managed to get a clean pair of work pants and a flannel shirt on Daddy. It takes all three of us to get him to sit up on the side of the bed. Kelly’s on one side of Daddy, and Mama’s on the other. Daddy’s wheezing and coughing. I put his shoes on him, tie the laces, and then help wrap his arms around their shoulders. They drag him out to the taxi, and I jump into the backseat and help pull him into the car. Mama gets in and puts a pillow in her lap, and I lift Daddy’s head so it can rest on the pillow.

“Please wait.” I run to the house, grab my book satchel, and then jump into the front seat beside Kelly.

“You need to go to school. I can handle this,” Mama says.

I turn around and look into her tired brown eyes. “I’m going with you, Mama, and that’s that.”

An hour later we’re still in the emergency room at High Memorial. The nurses don’t seem too concerned about Daddy. The gray-haired bossy nurse recognized me from my picture in
The Chronicle
. She congratulated me on winning the state spelling bee. But she’s been staring at Mama, probably wondering how such a decent, pretty lady ended up with such a sick, smelly man.

The nurse says there’s a terrible flu going around and that Daddy’s dehydrated. The IV is restoring his fluids and Dr. Harris is on his way. She seems more concerned with the way Daddy smells than with keeping him alive. But he does smell awfully polluted. It’s a burned-up kind of smell, as if a million cigarettes had been dumped in a pond of whiskey and
set on fire. Maybe it’s the fever that’s cooking his insides.

Mama acts decent and respectful to the nincompoop nurse, but I can tell she is ashamed Daddy keeps cussing every few minutes.

Around six o’clock in the evening, I’m pacing at the foot of the bed in Daddy’s hospital room, and Mama’s sitting in a chair beside him. Dr. Harris left a while ago. He said Daddy’s got double pneumonia and they’re giving him strong antibiotics to clear it up. They’re also trying to keep his fever down.

Daddy sits up in bed and shakes his finger at Mama. “Somebody better get rid of these goddamn soldiers before I have to kill them myself.”

“It’s okay, Miller, it’s okay.” Mama tries to soothes him.

He jumps out of bed, rips the IV out of his arm, and starts fighting with one of the invisible soldiers.

“Honey, please.” Mama tries to grab him by the arm, but he crouches down and swings his arms wildly as if he’s being attacked by vultures. Then he falls on the bed and starts having muscle spasms all over his body. Mama pushes the emergency button.

“I’m going to get somebody now.” I race down the hall to the nurses’ station and tell the nurse Daddy’s having a seizure. One of the nurses picks up the phone and the other one follows me back to the room. Daddy’s lying on his side, sobbing, saying that somebody is trying to kill me and the twins. The nurse shoos Mama away, bends down, and talks in a soft but authoritative voice. “Mr. Bridges. We’re taking
care of everything. Nobody’s getting hurt around here.”

Daddy closes his eyes, but he’s still jerking real bad. The other nurse comes in with a hypodermic and asks us to step into the hall. Mama looks frightened as we wait outside the door.

“Maybe he’s allergic to the medicine or something,” I say. “I don’t know, Karlene. I just don’t know.” Now Mama is shaking.

The nurse comes out of the room and says she gave Daddy a mild sedative and inserted his IV again, and that he’s sleeping. They’ve called the psychiatrist, who should be there shortly. Mama can wait in Daddy’s room until the doctor comes, but I have to go downstairs and wait in the lobby. Halfway relieved, I get my stuff and leave.

People are lined up at the reception desk. A violin solo plays in the background. It’s kind of sad and comforting at the same time. I find a quiet couch over near the window. The snow’s still coming down. I don’t ever remember this much snow. I close my eyes.

I wake up to the sound of people shrieking. Across the lobby, the elevator opens, and the people waiting to get on scatter everywhere. A skinny man, naked as Adam, streaks through the lobby, waving a pair of scissors. People jump out of his way as he runs toward the entrance. The receptionist leaps up from her desk and tries to stop him, but he just zips around her. As he gets closer, I see it’s Daddy! He looks terrified, as if he’s just escaped the fangs of hell.

I jump up and run toward him, but he sprints to the
massive front door and pushes it open as if it’s a screen door. A security guard dashes into the lobby and the receptionist yells, “He just ran out the entrance!”

I’m right behind the guard as he rushes out the front door. He goes right, but I go left—in the direction toward home. It’s a moonless night, but the hospital grounds are well lighted. Penny-size snowflakes flutter to the ground. I try to run in the snow, but it’s too deep, so I clomp through it looking for a sign of Daddy. In the distance, I hear a police siren. I have to find Daddy before they get here. He can’t make it too far like he is. Naked. Barefoot. Running in the deep snow. But I don’t see any tracks. He’s so skinny now, he might be walking on top of the snow. Up ahead there’s a row of hemlocks, surrounded by shrubs, all covered in snow. Underneath the giant tree limbs looks like a good place to hide.

“Daddy!” I yell again and again.

The siren shrieks as the police car slides into the parking lot. Its red flashing light makes the snowflakes look pink. Two officers get out and start tromping through the snow in my direction. I make my way toward the last of the hemlocks. “Daddy! Where are you?”

Twenty feet away I see his naked butt. He’s standing in front of a young holly tree, just clipping away like he’s a barber trimming someone’s hair. I don’t want to scare him, so I creep toward him. Red berries are scattered all over the snow. “Daddy, hey, it’s me.” He turns around, looking startled, but then he recognizes me. “Hey, Lila, I just came
by to help out in the weave room.” He turns away and starts clipping at the air. He thinks
I’m
Mama and
he’s at work
. He thinks he’s at work!

“Daddy, it’s me, Karlene!” I rush toward him.

But two orderlies run by me, carrying a gurney. “We’ve got him, miss!” One man grabs Daddy and takes the scissors away, and the other thrusts a hypodermic into his skinny hip. Daddy sort of crumples up and they wrap a big white blanket around him and lay him on the gurney. The siren has stopped, but the red light flashes around and around, bouncing off all the smooth, white snow. Then they buckle him down and carry him away.

Billy Ray walks up and puts his arm around me, and we make our way back to the hospital. “Your mama’s inside, talking to the doctor. It’s going to be all right.” My basketball shoes are soaked. I can’t even feel my feet. I’m slinging snot all over the place. Everybody’s standing around outside the hospital, acting like they’re at a goddamn circus. “It’s going to be all right,” Billy Ray keeps saying, like a record that’s stuck.

“What are you talking about? It’s never going to be all right. Never.
Never
. My daddy has lost his mind!” I break away from him and rush into the hospital. Mama is standing on the other side of the lobby talking to the doctor, so I rush over and stand beside them. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“Mrs. Bridges, has your husband ever had an episode like that before?”

“Nothing
like this has ever happened,” Mama says in a hushed voice, then hangs her head and cries. I put my arm
around her waist and hold her steady. Preacher Smoot rushes over and says he heard about the ruckus while making his nightly rounds. Then he offers his hand to the doctor and says, “Hello, I’m Dr. Smoot Faulkenberry, their pastor.”

The doctor shakes his hand and continues. “Ma’am, has Mr. Bridges ever been in a mental institution before?”

Mama’s still crying too hard, so I answer for her. “No, sir, but he drinks an awful lot, which causes his behavior to be erratic.”

Preacher Smoot steps in. “Mr. Bridges has struggled with his drinking for a long time.”

“How long has he been drinking like that?” The doctor looks directly at me.

“My whole life,” I say. “At least fourteen years.”

Mama turns and looks at me with the sorrowful expression of a mother who forgot that her daughter’s birthday was today. I smile my kindest smile, letting her know we had far bigger fish to fry.

“My husband has been drinking steady for at least twenty-two years.”

The doctor writes something on his chart. “Mrs. Bridges, I think your husband is going through alcohol withdrawal. It’s called
delirium tremens
, and it’s causing the hallucinations and convulsions. The strong antibiotics and his body trying to fight the pneumonia probably intensified the withdrawal. We restrained and sedated your husband and have taken him to a restricted room on the eighth floor to get him stabilized.”

“What about visitors?” Mama asks.

“No visitors until he gets better,” the doctor says.

“What about treatment for the drinking?” Mama says.

“Did your husband serve in the military?”

“Yes, sir. He was in the navy, and served in Korea.”

“As soon as the pneumonia clears up, we’ll help you make arrangements to get him to the Veterans Hospital in Columbia. They have a treatment program.”

“Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate your help so very much,” Mama says.

“You’re welcome, ma’am. We have your phone number. You should go home tonight.” He pats her on the shoulder and looks at me with a kind face. “Both of you need some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He walks away.

“He’s right, Lila. I’m taking you home,” Preacher Smoot says, then helps Mama into her ancient black coat. I grab my books, put on my red coat, and follow them through the heavy doors.

Billy Ray’s waiting by the taxi. “Mrs. Bridges, Kelly wanted me to pick you up and bring you by the station for a minute before I take you home. He has a few things for you.”

Mama gets in the backseat. I sit up front beside Billy Ray, mesmerized by the wipers swishing away the snowflakes. I have a vision of everything that’s happened today, but it’s all happening right
now
, like a sonic boom of images flashing before my eyes in black and white. I’m helping Daddy into the taxi, sitting in his hospital room, chasing him in the snow, and riding in this taxi all at once. A blackbird is singing in
the dead of night. And I’m swirling around in a fiery spiral of perfect joy and perfect sadness. The feeling is hard to bear. It’s like being baptized, or being born, or dying, or seeing the ocean for the first time. Having this eternal feeling makes me understand why people like to believe that things happen one at a time, in a fixed place, neatly following the thing before—like pearls strung into a necklace.