The Feet of God

73 - A STAGED INTERVENTION

Jimmy-Bob took my arm and together we made our way to a little shed out back of the doublewide.  He slid open one of the doors and we ducked a bit to enter the dark room.  Slim was close behind.

“Now we gonna treat this condition you suffer from,” he explained.  With a sweeping motion he wiped paint cans and nails and rusty screwdrivers and a hammer off the top of an old Formica table.  “Get those pants off and hop up here.”  He handed me another beer as part of my ongoing therapy.

“Well, okay.”  I got outta those stiff oil-stained britches, and quickly drained the medicinal brewski.  Then I sorta leaned onto the table on my side, real gentle-like, not being too sure how the wobbly aluminum legs would hold up under the weight.

“Ya’ll are real nice taking such good care of me.  I’ve had a few rough days.”

Slim was just about to pick up the pants when Jimmy-Bob hollered, “Don’t touch them contaminated things.  Let ‘em lie or you’ll get what he’s got.”  He kicked the duds into the corner.

I closed my eyes for a minute, the cool table top against my back, another cool beer at my lips.  When I opened ‘em again Jimmy-Bob had a length of clothesline in one hand and a gas can in the other.  I started to sit up until a large hand covered the center of my chest and pressed backwards.

“Dammit,” Jimmy-Bob scolded.  “Ain’t I been tryin’ to tell you not to touch him or nothin’?”  He tossed Slim some rubber dishwashing gloves.  “Let’s tie him down.”

Moments later I was trussed, spread-eagled and naked, laid out on a kitchen table, with a nasty rash from head to toe itching at me something ferocious.

“Wha’chu fixin’ to do?”  I eyed the gas can he held in his hand.

Jimmy-Bob turned to the trailer.  “Maybelline!” he howled.  “Maybelline, get me one of your washin’ sticks.”  From my position I couldn’t exactly see, but I could hear the door bang against the siding conjuring a mental picture of Maybelline.

Then, outta nowhere, appeared that spindly moon-eyed boy from Slim’s truck.  He stared straight at me and then scampered off as Maybelline showed up holding a toilet brush with a long rag tied around the hard bristle end.

My beer buzz was fading fast.  “Wha’chu figuring to do to me now?”

Jimmy-Bob put his face up near mine.  “Now listen to me, you see this skin condition you got all over you?”  I opened my eyes as wide as I could in my situation, and nodded in the affirmative.  “Well, you must’a been passed out down in that sumac for a couple’a days, ‘cause it’s gettin’ past the blisterin’ stage and you’re commencing to get the weepin’ sores pretty bad.  So we gotta dry out your skin, that’s what this here kerosene is for.”

“Kerosene?” I repeated.

“Kerosene,” he stated.  “We gotta dry up them sores so’s they don’t spread the poison.”

“Couldn’t you drop me off at a nearby hospital emergency room?”

Instead of an answer, Jimmy-Bob poured a soakin’ of kerosene out onto the washin’ stick and handed it to Slim.  “Now lay still,” Jimmy-Bob said.  “This is gonna be cold at first, then it’s gonna sting a bit, then it’s gonna burn like a sumbitch.  Remember, we’re doin’ this for your own good.”

I was about to comment on the quality of his bedside manner when Slim suddenly slapped the oily rag across my stomach.  I might’a screamed out, I’m not sure.  Jimmy-Bob’s descriptive powers wasn’t lacking.  As he continued to swab, Slim poured more fuel on the applicator.  Up one side and down the other, with a thoroughness that reached around.

“That’s right, you just let loose ’n holler all you want,” I heard Jimmy-Bob say.  “Ain’t nobody around to take no notice out here in the woods anyhow.  Once the pain passes, you’ll feel a whole lot better.  Trust me.”

Slim slopped kerosene about my face and neck, and I blacked out.