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Farts Like Gold: 7 -- Lunch Treats
Farts Like Gold: 6 -- Brendan Gets Up
Farts Like Gold: 5 -- Making Breakfast
December 26, 2005
Farts Like Gold: 8 -- Seeing the Doctor
It was early enough in the day that I didn't have to wait too long at the hospital. The doctor confirmed what they told me in Fort St. John. I needed surgery.
"The good news is that we managed to book you in this afternoon," the doctor told me.
"Great, how long will I be in hospital?"
"You should be out tonight," he said. "They'll cut open your hand, straighten the bone, and screw a plate into it to give it some strength while it heals. Then they'll sew you up and you'll be on your way."
"How long until I can go back to work?" I asked.
"Well, you can probably start using the hand as long as you're careful in about a week. By which I mean, opening doors, eating and drinking - that kind of thing. It will still hurt though. And you should be careful with it. The plate won't be a strong as your bone was before the accident and you don't want to break it as well. I wouldn't go back to planting for about six weeks if you're smart."
After surgery, they doctor told me again to take it easy for a while and prescribed some percocet for the pain. I got the prescription filled in the pharmacy in the hospital. I took one right away. It made me a bit woozy, but killed the pain. I was exhausted now. I tried to think who was in town that I could call but I couldn't come up with anyone that I had the energy to talk to. I wandered up Whyte Avenue and checked into the Strathcona Hotel.
I dumped my stuff in my room and walked down the hall to one of the bathrooms. The room had one wooden chair and a bathtub. I sat on the chair while the tub filled with water. My hand was starting to hurt again but I was worried about falling asleep in the tub so I didn't take another pill.
Once the tub was full I got out of my clothes and stepped into the water. I lay in the tub for about half an hour, just staring at the ceiling with my right hand on the edge of the tub. I bent my legs and pulled my knees out of the water. My skin was getting a bit pruny and about a dozen thorns were working their way to the surface. They were like little bristles sticking out of little red patches on my skin. I leaned forward and tried to scrape them out of my skin with the fuckyou fingernail on my left hand. That didn't work too well, but I found that if I pressed down on either side of the thorn with two of my fingers , the thorn would ooze out as if by magic. Playing with my thorns kept me occupied for another half an hour.
I washed my hair with my left hand, got out of the tube and dried myself off. I walked back to my room wearing my towel and took another percocet. I went to bed naked and fell asleep with my right hand on a pillow outside the covers.
Posted by YandaMan at 10:01 AM
December 18, 2005
Farts Like Gold: 7 -- Lunch Treats
He stopped off along the way to piss Afterwards, he washed his hands with the bleach bottle. He dropped his daypack near one of the quads and ducked under the flap of the tent by the cookbus. April came down the steps with a pot of scrambled eggs.
"Good morning, beautiful," Brendan said. "What's on the menu?"
"Breakfast burritos."
"Fantastic!"
There were seven or eight others in the cookshack. Brendan poured himself a coffee and grabbed a couple of muffins from the pail that Cassie had put out. He went to the staff table and sat down. Joe came in from the back of the tent just as Brendan was sitting down.
"Morning Brendan."
"Morning Joe."
Brendan took off his toque and scratched his head. "How are we doing for setup this morning?"
"Not too bad," said Joe. "We'll need to set up the block 52, but it should be quick. Should be able to do most of it from the truck. Everybody's got land until about noon."
"Yeah, you told me last night."
Lucy came in from the back of the cookshack, poured herself a coffee and sat on the storage box near the serving counter. She started rolling herself a smoke.
Cassandra came down the steps with a box of lunch treats and walked past her. Lucy stuck her hand in the box and took out a wax paper bag containing two brownies.
"Hey!" said Cassie.
"What?" asked Lucy.
"Wait 'til I put them on the table."
"Sorry."
"And do you have to sit there? It's hard to get by."
"I always sit here in the mornings," said Lucy.
Cassie put the lunch treats on the table. As soon as it touched the table all the planters nearby grabbed wax paper bags from inside the box. Cassie stepped back and turned to Lucy.
"Sorry. Just starting the day out by being bitchy," she said. "Give me a smoke."
Lucy handed her the cigarette she had just rolled.
"Smokeddey smoke smoke smoke," said Cassie. She sat down on the storage box next to Lucy. "Kent hasn't called yet, if you were wondering."
"Didn't think he would. Probably won't call until tonight at the earliest," said Lucy. She dumped some tobacco onto another rolling paper.
Cassie stood up. "I wish to God you hadn't broken his hand," she said. She went back into the cookbus.
Lucy watched her go, then went back to rolling the cigarette. She licked one edge of the rolling paper and rubbed it back and forth in her palm with one hand. She lit the smoke and leaned back against the fabric of the tent.
Posted by YandaMan at 10:41 PM
December 11, 2005
Farts Like Gold: 6 -- Brendan Gets Up
Half an hour later, Brendan's watch alarm went off. He wormed his arm out from inside his sleeping bag, reached into the netting above his head without opening his eyes and pushed the button to turn it off. He drew his hand back inside his sleeping bag and rolled back and forth to tuck it in tight around his neck. He writhed in the sleeping bag, flexing and stretching his legs to generate some warmth. He opened his eyes and rolled over so he could see the pack by his side. He freed his arm again and plunged it into the pack, felt around inside for a couple of seconds until he found a pair of underwear and jammed them deep inside the sleeping bag between his legs. He did the same with a pair of heavy wool socks. He lay there for a couple of minutes until he heard the zipper of someone's tent nearby open.
"Sweet Mother of Hairy Jesus," he said. He struggled out of his sleeping socks and sweatpants and into the still cold underpants and socks. Then he sat up with the sleeping bag still around his legs, took off his sleeping tee shirt and put on the driest working tee shirt he could find. He struggled into a long-sleeved work shirt, put on his watch, and crawled out of the sleeping bag and unzipped the door of his tent. Like the 40 or so other tents near him, there was a plastic tarp strung up a couple of feet above his tent providing extra protection for the tent and a sheltered awning in front of the door. He grabbed his boots from beside the tent and shook them upside down briefly. Some moss and a twig fell out of one of them. He put his boots on, still sitting half inside the tent, then swivelled around into a crouch outside the tent and did the door zip back up. He jammed his toque on his head, picked up his daypack and headed down the path to the cook shack.
Posted by YandaMan at 11:04 PM
December 4, 2005
Farts Like Gold: 5 -- Making Breakfast
I slept on the bus, but not until after I let my new friend Tony sign my gauze. I watched as he started to draw a heart with his black felt pen. He noticed me watching him and turned it into a flower.
"I didn't want you to get the wrong idea," he said.
I nodded. "Don't worry about it."
He took his coat out of his daypack and scrunched it up against the window. He winked at me then pressed his head against the coat and closed his eyes.
I took a couple more Tylenol 3s, pulled my cap down over my eyes, slumped down in the seat and stretched my legs out. I didn't sleep much but at least my hand stopped throbbing for a while.
We pulled into Edmonton just before 5:30 in the morning. Tony collected his luggage while I got into a cab. He ran over and knocked on the window. I rolled it down.
"I just thought maybe we could meet up later for a drink. Not because... you know. But because. Well, you know."
"Don't worry about it." I said. "Do you know the Commercial Hotel on Whyte Avenue?"
"Yeah."
"Well, depending on what happens with my hand, I'll see you there. But not tonight. I'm betting I'll either be in the hospital or trying to sleep."
"How about tomorrow?"
"How about Friday?" I said. "Come to think of it, what day is it today?"
"Wednesday."
"Perfect. Friday it is then."
"Great. See you Friday."
I rolled up the window. Tony had a huge grin on his face.
"University Hospital," I said to the driver.
Around about the time the bus was pulling into Edmonton, Cassie was pulling muffins out of the oven back in camp. The sun was rising. April was making breakfast burritos. Everyone else was still asleep.
"Do you think Kent is in Edmonton, yet?" asked April.
"Don't know. I know I'm not. The lucky bastard!" Cassie tipped the muffins out of the tray on to a cooling rack. "I think he said it was an overnight bus trip. But I don't know what overnight means. Might be there. Might be not."
April was grating cheese for the burritos. "I wish I was in Edmonton. I'd love to sit in a chair with a back. I'd love to sleep in! I want to get up when it's light and go to bed when it's dark. How much longer until the break?"
"The season has barely started! We've only been out here for a couple of weeks. You've got a long way to go, sugar!" Cassie said. "But somehow It feels like it's ending already. I hate it when people leave camp. I love Lucy to bits, but she just makes men stupid. I don't know exactly what went on up there. But I do know that it would have taken a mighty leap of stupidity for Kent to break his hand. And there's only one force in the universe that can make that man that stupid."
"Oh come on. It sounds like it could have happened to anybody. And Kent said it was his own fault. These things just happen."
"Well, some things happen. And some things that happen are good things. And some things that happen are bad things. And some things that happen are just butt stupid things." Cassie dumped another load of muffins on to the rack. A couple didn't come out. She put the tray on the stove and grabbed a knife from the counter. She dug the muffins out with the knife and put them with the others. She added the tray to the pile by the sink and pulled the last tray out of the other oven.
April dumped the cheese she had grated into a bowl and got some eggs out of a cooler at the front of the bus. She picked up two of the eggs, one with each hand, and cracked them into a bowl. She rotated her fingers to separate the shells and tossed them into the garbage. Then she picked up another two eggs. She said, "I don't believe he did anything really stupid. I'm sure there was an element of bad luck involved."
"Maybe. Maybe. Maybe," said Cassie. "I just know when Lucy's around he doesn't pay attention to much of anything else."
"You mean when Lucy's around, he doesn't pay any attention to you."
"Same thing."
April laughed.
Cassie wiped off the cutting board April had been grating cheese onto and started slicing tomatoes for the lunch table. April continued to crack eggs two at a time and dump them in the bowl.
"You're just upset he won't be around to help out in camp," April said.
"He only helped out because Lucy was always in here," said Cassie. "Lucy hid in here to avoid the guys. Kent followed Lucy. And we used Kent to change propane bottles and wash dishes. It's the circle of life, sugar."
Cassie put the tomatoes on a plate and got a tupperware container of luncheon meat out of one of the coolers. She grabbed a couple of peppers and started chopping them up. April had put a full flat of eggs into the bowl. She added some pepper and salt and a liberal slosh of milk and began mixing. A strand of hair fell in front of her eyes and she blew it away with a puff of breath.
Posted by YandaMan at 11:29 PM | Comments (1)