“Yep.”
“If those things clamp onto my toe, I’m coming out of this canoe.”
I took off my shirt, bundled the crabs inside and stuffed them behind my seat. They’d keep until the White Oak boat ramp at Brickyard Landing.
We slipped past Blood Landing and watched the moon reach full and high over Cabbage Bend. The moon lit the water in a hazy shade of blue and cast tall tree shadows across the water. The light brought out the water bugs, which in turn attracted the fish by the hundreds. We paddled through feeding frenzy after feeding frenzy. It was one of those rare occasions that would have been beautiful had it been any other time. Abbie climbed up, leaned against the side of the canoe and dangled her fingers in the water. All along the banks, the tree frogs croaked a summertime chorus that was answered by an occasional alligator and distant barking dog.
Years back, Mr. Gilman of the Gilman Paper Company donated several thousand acres of land for what is now the White Oak Plantation. It’s beyond exclusive. There’s a golf course, but you can’t play it. You can’t set foot on it unless you’re a president or somebody real famous. Drive up to the gate and they’ll instruct you in the finer points of a U-turn. Invitations are scarce and money won’t buy you entrance.
Word has it that somewhere in the 1980s Mr. Gilman met Mikhail Baryshnikov. A friendship ensued and Mr. Gilman built a dance studio for what became the White Oak Dancers. Made up of the best dancers in the world, they are quite possibly the most elite group ever to perform, which they have done some six hundred times around the world. It always struck me as odd that the pinnacle of ballet achievement and performance trains at a plantation in the sticks of North Florida.
My interest in White Oak had little to do with Gilman or the dancers but rather Brickyard Landing. White Oak rolls out of the oaks and crawls up to the river’s edge at a little concrete ramp and manicured landing tucked down in the woods behind a No Trespassing sign. Solitary needle-thin pine trees rise sixty feet high, swaying slightly in the breeze, but it’s the smell of the marsh that gives it away. It is here that the river changes yet again. Sandy beaches, scrub oaks and poplar trees have given way to wiregrass, pluff mud and oyster beds. It’s also the first place on the river where you can detect the tidal stain on the bank. Here it’s just two or three feet, but closer to Highway 17 and I-95, the stain will color nearly six feet on the bank. The smell brushed under my nose, the trees spiked the night sky above us and Brickyard Landing appeared on our right.
I cut the paddle like a rudder, pulled the canoe up the concrete and steadied Abbie as she stepped out. When I was working for Gus, there was this older guy—maybe eighty years old—named Russ who came around every morning with his pipe, newspaper and coffee. He was lonely, widowed by both his wife and dog, so he talked to us while we gathered the boats, life jackets and paddles. His skin was real thin and both his forearms were covered in sailor’s tattoos. He got them after he landed on the beach at Normandy and lived to tell about it. The skin had stretched and fallen in taut wrinkles and the voluptuous woman who had once stood there now drooped. Anyway, Russ was there most mornings, spinning stories and living vicariously through us. Every morning as we shoved off the bank, he’d push himself up out of Gus’s rocker, wave us off and then stand there, hanging on to the side of the wall while his arthritic knees quivered beneath him. Then he’d stroll home, looking forward to tomorrow morning.
Abbie stood, her knees quivered, she hung on me and I remembered Russ.
Behind us lay a grassy lawn, ankle-high in Bermuda grass. To our left sat a dark boathouse with a dock, screened in porch and bathroom.
The power had been turned off, but I found a candle and began searching the porch, where I stumbled over a large pot and propane cooker. I boiled about three gallons of water, dumped the crabs in and then I spread an old newspaper across the picnic table while Abbie dug two lemon-lime Shastas out of a pantry in the back. I boiled the crabs, dumped them across the newspaper, and we gorged. I looked across the growing pile of shells on the table and Abbie was sucking one of the legs clean.
I cleaned up our mess while Abbie found the shower. The bathroom was new and relatively clean. The shower looked like four or five kids could shower at once. It was a four-foot by eight-foot area with six showerheads all shooting toward the drain in the middle. I turned on the shower and, surprisingly, warm water ran out. Abbie walked into the middle, grabbed the soap off the wall, sat down near the drain and patted the tile next to her.
I sniffed my shirt. “That bad, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” We showered until the soap grew thin and the water ran cold.
The main portion of the boathouse was a large great room with vaulted ceilings centered around a fireplace and a moose head hanging above the mantel. I pulled the pads off some of the benches on the porch, making us a pallet on the floor while Abbie toweled off. I helped her into her dry T-shirt, slipped on her socks and then zipped her inside the fleece sleeping bag. Didn’t take her long to fall asleep, so I rinsed out our clothes, washing them as best I could, and draped them over the railing to dry. That left me naked and tired, but not sleepy. I made some coffee and sipped in the silence while Abbie breathed heavily alongside me. The night air was surprisingly cool and damp on the concrete floor, so I lit a small fire in the fireplace and got lost in the glow of the coals.
Somewhere after midnight, a draft blew across the room, reigniting the coals and sending a small flame a few inches into the air. I stared into the darkness and let my eyes adjust. Behind me, a back door slid open and quietly clicked shut. Then I heard a footstep followed by a muffled whisper. I grabbed the revolver, back up against the wall and listened.
The first man walked into the room as if he was in a hurry. He stood about four feet from Abbie, staring down at her. If she knew he was there, she made no sign of it. The firelight reflected off his glasses and the oily shine on his face. The second man was taller and appeared to limp. The third man was broad-shouldered, thick-legged and walked like a troll. Their body shapes told me these were the same guys.
I pressed my right palm hard against the grip of the revolver and supported it with my left.
When the first man reached out and began to pull on the tarp covering Abbie’s feet, I extended the revolver and put pressure on the trigger. The hammer was at half cock when something hard smashed down above my left eye. The blow slammed me backward into the wall and sent the bullet into the ceiling above me. I fell and landed hard on my back in what was probably a utility closet.
I tried to stand but couldn’t. I couldn’t see out of my left eye, my right wasn’t much better and something warm oozed down my face. I tried crawling but could not force my hands to lift my own weight. The first man turned on a head-mounted light like a coal miner and ripped off the tarp, while a second began pulling on the sleeping bag. Limpy stood back and laughed in a high-pitched, devilish howl. Given the light from now two headlamps and the fire, I could see that a fourth man standing above me had just hit me with the butt of my own shotgun. He kicked me hard in the ribs.
Coal Miner said, “Look what we got here.” Abbie’s eyes were open but she made no movement and put up no fight. I tried to breathe but couldn’t. Coal-miner man knelt between her legs while the Troll grabbed her by the head, ripping off the scarf. He held the scarf up like a scalp then looked in disbelief at Abbie. “Bufort, she bald as a peach. Ain’t a lick o’ dang hair.”
Coal Miner knelt on top of her and began fumbling with his belt buckle. He laughed. “She ain’t gonna need it.” Limpy grabbed her T-shirt by the collar and ripped it down the middle. All three men sat back and stared at Abbie’s pale, bosomless, concave white chest. Coal Miner’s lamp lit her like a stage. “Well, I’ll be a…” The second man poked him in the shoulder. “She ain’t got no teets neither.”
Limpy leaned in. “She flatter than you, Buf.” Their laughter bounced off the vaulted ceiling. Troll turned his head sideways like a dog. “Looks like t
wo puckering buttholes.”
The three men had now multiplied to six, two of each of them. Another draft blew across the room, tugging at the fire and pulling more flame out that lit nearly the entire room. I lunged at the man over me, grabbed the shotgun and heard him click off the safety. I pulled, causing him to reflexively yank hard on the trigger. Two feet of flame shot out of the barrel as the percussion nearly burst my eardrum. The blast of number 8 birdshot cut through the house and ricocheted off the concrete floor. I turned toward Abbie just as the butt of the shotgun came down a second time on my left eye. I landed flat on the concrete in a puddle of something that smelled like oil and heard him jacking another shell in the chamber. My vision faded from black to blurry and back to black again. The fourth man was straddling me, pointing the barrel in my face, firelight reflecting off the whites of his eyes.
Coal Miner’s hands were walking up and down Abbie. Limpy leaned in, squinting, and put his hand on Troll’s shoulder. “Verl…” He pointed. “She ain’t right.”
Coal Miner sat back. “Wha’ you talking ’bout?”
“Look at her. She looks ’bout dead.”
Coal Miner adjusted his lamp, making him look like a Cyclops, and dropped his shorts. “She’s alive enough.”
Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw a bluish-reddish flash and then heard what sounded like the flip and flop of flip-flops. Half a second later, the shotgun man’s head snapped back, he grunted and fell across me, shoving my face down hard against the concrete and back into the oil.
The man who now stood above me wore red and blue Hawaiian shorts, flip-flops, no shirt and he was holding a jagged piece of a two-by-four. Limpy leapt to his feet, only to be immediately met in the head by the swinging end of the lumber. Bits and pieces of teeth flew out across the room and scattered across the concrete. Somewhere, a small, furry, snarling thing entered the picture. It jumped off the ground—its nails scratching the concrete—latched onto Coal Miner’s butt and hung there. Limpy hit the ground like a noodle, without so much as a grunt. Coal Miner had just gotten his pants below his butt, which was real hairy. I don’t think he was wearing any underwear. Troll bounced like a cat, grabbed Hawaiian man around the neck only to get hip-tossed across the room toward me. He landed against the wall and I whacked him in the head with the side of the revolver. He moaned and I hit him again. He lifted his head and I slammed it down a third time. He lay on the ground moaning but not moving. I pulled myself across the floor toward Abbie. Coal Miner turned just in time to see Mr. Hawaii coming toward him. Coal Miner’s lamp partially blinded Mr. Hawaii, but not the little snarling beast hanging on his butt. Pants still at his ankles, Coal Miner sack-jumped to one side and took three strides back, trying to shake loose the demon attached to his buttock. Coal Miner tripped and landed on the dog, momentarily shaking it loose, but when he stood it launched itself a second time off the concrete and latched firmly onto the man’s crotch. Coal Miner began screaming at the top of his high-pitched lungs.
Incredibly, Coal Miner made it to the door and disappeared outside. I saw the reflection of his lamp as he jumped off the porch, tripped and began rolling down the grassy lawn toward the river. Mr. Hawaii looked at me, smiled, then disappeared out the door in the direction of the lamp and the sound of the snarling. I couldn’t see out of my left eye, the world was spinning too fast and the edges were starting to tunnel inward. I crawled up next to Abbie as my own nausea came in waves. I lay across her, feeling her stomach rise and fall under mine. I forced my eyes open but I knew I didn’t have long. I crawled back to the shotgun, press-checked the chamber with my finger and returned to Abbie. I pulled her up against the wall and then came to one knee, setting myself between her and the bodies in the room. Troll was moaning but his nose was spread across his face, so I doubted he felt like moving. Limpy had yet to twitch.
Sixty seconds later, we heard a loud crack somewhere outside followed by a loud splash. A single lamp returned up the hill and through the door. Its wearer was whistling and he was carrying something in his arms. I raised the shotgun, scattering my aim from the front door to the back. My arms were shaking but I wrapped my first digit around the trigger. The man with the lamp returned to the middle of the room, turned out his light and set the dog on the ground next to him. The dog sniffed across the floor to us. It licked my foot then wound behind me to Abbie. The man looked down at me but I was having a difficult time focusing. Finally, he dug a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, hung one from his lips and lit it with a shiny silver Zippo lighter. He drew deeply then slammed the lighter closed on his thigh. “Looks like you two have had some trouble.”
I clicked on the safety and fumbled for the Pelican case. I grabbed two syringes, swabbed Abbie’s thigh, cracked the cap on the dopamine and injected it, followed quickly by the dexamethasone. Then I leaned against the wall and my eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. The last thing I remember seeing before my eyelashes touched, was the red glow of his cigarette. A little while later, I remember feeling my stomach jump into my mouth, my shoulders press against a hard seat and feeling Abbie wrap her arms tight about me. I tried to wake but the fog was too thick. Abbie cradled me, locked her legs around mine and pulled me into her. She was trembling. Somewhere close I heard an engine roar, felt it rumble and somebody turned on a fan.
29
Chemo is a daily rug—three weeks on, one week off, four days a week, eight bags a day, six hours a day. It’s like having a cold for a very long time. It also did a few other things. She bled around her gums and from her nose, had nonstop diarrhea, lost her appetite and hair, lived with nausea and tingling in her fingers and toes and vomited constantly for three weeks out of every month.
The first round of chemo did what the doctors were hoping. It shrank the tumors, but it did not change their recommendation. We checked into the hospital at 6 a.m. on a Friday morning for a 10 a.m. surgery. Minutes before they rolled her down the hall, she looked up at me out of the haze and fog of whatever sleepy medicine was dripping into her veins and she asked, “You be here when I wake up?”
“Yep.”
“You promise?”
I nodded. “Tomorrow, too.”
She closed her eyes, they wheeled her down the hall and I walked to the surgical waiting room where her stepmom and dad sat. After more than a decade of being married to their daughter, we’d reached an amicable truce. They didn’t speak to me and I only spoke to them when spoken to.
I used to think I could win them over, but I’d made little progress. In truth, none. Katherine sat there reading Architectural Digest while Abbie’s father talked on the phone with offices in both Charleston and D.C.
During the five-hour surgery, a nurse gave us periodic updates. “We’ve finished with the right side, margins are clear, lymph nodes are good…now we’re starting on the left.” I noticed she didn’t say anything about reconstruction.
At 4 p.m., the surgeon, Dr. Dismakh, appeared. He pulled off his mask and motioned for us to follow him into the private consultation room. He said, “We’re finished. Abbie’s sleeping and I’ll take you to her shortly.” He paused, telling me I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say. “Her lymph nodes suggest the cancer has spread. We did not perform a reconstruction.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Seems a bit insensitive to ask why when cancer is still swimming around inside her.
“The cancer is…extensive. We’ve gotten what we could with surgery. In the months ahead, we’ll need to attack it by alternating chemo with radiation.” The words months, chemo and radiation bounced around the inside of my head like pinballs. He continued, “Physically, the reconstruction would hinder our future ability to see growth or reoccurrence of the disease. Further, the recovery from her reconstruction would delay our need to start treatments as soon as possible. As it is, she can begin soon.”
They’d moved her to a recovery room and told me I could see her while we waited for a room upstairs. Prior to surgery, it was no
t uncommon for her to be at a function or anything where a bunch of women had gathered and for some lady to discreetly pull her aside, glance at her breasts and ask, “Tell the truth, who’s your plastic surgeon?” I walked into her room, glanced at her gauze-covered chest and knew she’d never get that question again.
That’s when I really clued in. The breast is not simply a body part. It’s a part of the whole that says, I am woman and I am beautiful, but it’s not on equal footing with the others. I sat in that room and realized that you can cut off a finger, cut off a hand, even cut off a leg, but if you take a woman’s breast, you are cutting more than just a body part.
It requires an adjustment.
I slid my hand beneath hers and waited. When she woke, it was somewhere in the night and she was in a great deal of pain.
I didn’t tell her until the next morning when the medicine wore off and the sun broke through the blinds. “Honey, the cancer was more…had spread further than they first thought. They got what they could. Now they’re talking more chemo and alternating that with radiation.” She glanced down at her flat chest. I shook my head. “Not yet. They didn’t want that to get in the way of…” I trailed off. What did I know. Abbie was in a lot of pain and kept hitting the morphine button after it reset every fifteen minutes.
Doctors Hampton, Smith and Meyer, along with Dr. Dismakh, her surgeon, stood in a semicircle around the foot of her bed. Dr. Hampton started. “Abbie, the lymph nodes we took from you tell us that your cancer has spread beyond what we call its organ of origin. The breast. At this point, it’s systemic, meaning it could be anywhere. We know of one mass on the lining of your lung.” We waited, listening but not quite comprehending. “We want to send you to M. D. Anderson in Houston. And maybe Sloan-Kettering. Both are on the cutting edge of this type of cancer.”